Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I planted spinach seedlings at the same time I planted everything else. I pulled the spinach out on the weekend as it had done nothing while everything else had more than quadrupled in size.

With your plants floating when you are filling your grow beds it sounds like you are over filling your grow beds. How high are you filling them up? The water level should be about 25mm below the surface of the media.

Awesome looking system. Love the water fall. I have only had a quick flick through pics so sorry for the silly question but is the water fall just for aeration or is it some sort of filter?

Okay,Now I believe you just confirmed what I thought may be my issue.My top GB only allows water to rise just to the bottom of the plants and even the top portion of hydroton stays dry usually but that bed is doing way better.My 2nd GB fills very high in comparison and now I know what to do.I'm going to have to shorten my stand pipe in the affnan(sp?) bell syphon as I suspected although with the flower pot contraptions I made they are definitely doing better but I'd rather not use them.New comer to AP so I am in the testing phases and thank you for explaining that part of it.Now I'll cut them down and allow it to drain faster.Thanks for the help.
Well,there's actually a filter on the pond that I made from a drum.But there's 3 tiers to the falls and I do use the top as more filtration also but mostly for bio media.It's almost full of lava rock and some other plastic strapping just for more bacteria to grow.But any and all parts of any surface in the water fall will allow beneficial bacteria to grow as well and it also allows quite a bit of sediment to settle in each tier of the falls.I just really wanted a nice set of falls and wanted a lot of aeration as well so it's a home run in many ways.Thank you for the kind words.

So here's some updates of the AP from approx. 3 weeks ago.I've been busy with work and trying to get it all done in time for my sons 5th birthday party and I received quite a bit of nice compliments and of course questions on AP It's nice to hear after all the work I have been putting in to all of this.

More (3 weeks ago or so)

Updates from today ~

Here's the top GB doing way better than the bottom one.Almost forgot ~ bottom GB has grape tomatoes,green bell peppers and better boy tomatoes. Top GB has Jalapeno peppers,red hot cherry peppers,romaine lettuce(added yesterday),red bell peppers and strawberries.My mom ate all the strawberries I had and so did the squirrels and chipmunks may have to come up with a solution for that.But Mom said they were awesome and some of the best ,sweetest and juiciest strawberries she's ever had.I took her word for it for now.The next one's are mine!All the peppers and the tomatoes are either flowering or producing fruits already!!!Not bad for 3 weeks!

More from today~

One more of the pond and some of the fish~

koi~

Had to share my strawberries with little ants.But the half a strawberry I had left was seriously the best strawberry I ever had. Anybody got any advice on how to get rid of ants?The whole neighborhood is having issues with the small ones this year.My yard has ant holes all over.I have some really nasty insect killer that I can put on the lawn but it killed everything last year,including worms which I always need around for fishing and free fish food,not to mention my compost pile did really crappy last year after all the worms died.Things have now recovered so i am trying to avoid it.Also my pond and AP obviously cannot be sprayed or anything...at a loss???
Any Suggestions?

Boil the kettle and start tipping hot water down the ant holes

ummm...whoa wouldn't be such a bad idea if it was "A" single hole but....

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If they are nesting in your GB's as I have had you can flood the bed for a day or so and that moves them on.