Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I expect the gel is snail eggs.

Looks outstanding DD, your systems get better looking every year!


Joe

You're right TC, googled snail eggs and that's what they look like.

I got lots of em.

Be a good thing if you could find a market for them

Any in the fish tank I think get eaten by the fish.

Went out of town for the 4th and came back today. The pipes on the top rail had spread apart a bit and were leaking. But the big surprise is that baby minnows are swimming around inside the troughs! I had to clean out the main pump again because it occasionally gets clogged. I plan to get some more fish this weekend, probably a bunch of bluegill. Also I think I may have to go with hooking up some gravel beds or otherwise altering the solids digester layout because there is a lot of debris ending up in the sump so I don't think the digester is working well enough. Still trying to get plants sprouting and going in the system.

Yesterday I put a tee on the end of the pipe that goes into the digester, so that the flow is cut back, and pulled the three airstones a couple of inches off of the bottom to maybe help things settle in there better. So far I have I think one net pot with strawberries sprouting, and the three square pots I planted with two kinds of tomato and a cantalope plant have sprouted.

The medium round Rendezvous pots with half cocoa shell mulch in them failed, because the mulch got moldy. I'm concentrating on the rail right now though. Also thinking about what will I do for the cold season this year.

I need to post a picture of the potato plant in the laundry tub wicking bed, because it's one of the healthiest plants I've ever seen!

hi dave,
Whats your pH reading? what do you do to make the pH drop?
Cause in my old set up, with the charcoal, pH is high 8.8.
please help
thanks

Hi TB, I haven't checked in a long while. I'll do that tomorrow and let you know. The plants that are in there seem to be growing OK without adjusting anything. I will also check the indoor aquarium setup which has been running with charcoal a lot longer. We'll see!

Hey Rupe

Iodine is not a metal!!

Que?????

Apparently he hasn't had coffee yet.

I've had about 5 since the post....

And still can't figure it out....

Stealing time from other weekend chores to do a little AP today. Got the indoor plants except a couple (houseplants) outside now. The troughs have a good layer of sediment in them. I am seriously thinking about setting the gravel tub(s) back up so that the trash can drains into them then they would go into the sump, so the water is filtered better. I want to see if the plants can suck out nutrients well enough to not have to do this but might not wait use the gravel as insurance.

I still have about 50 3" net pots to use, so I plan to make another blue board raft, which would do double duty as a shade for the pond, to keep algae down.

Here is a picture of the teeny strawberry seeds which already came up, and the cantalope in the big pot. BTW I spell it cantalope, screw spell checking.

Whilst looking into the sump I noticed this plant that has somehow sprouted attached to the Scotch Brite pad in the sump! You cannot not grow stuff in AP! Maybe I could just plant seeds directly in little strips of pads, maybe a little bit out of the water, kind of like a raft.

Also, it appears that the charcoal actually does wick water, because the net pots are moist. This may be leftover from rain yesterday but I think it is actually wicking a little bit.