Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Lesson learnt Brian. Will never top up with town water again, unless we run out of rain water.

Although I have not implemented it yet I must agree with brian. My original plan was to have an additional rain water ICB and have it connected to the sump on a ball float so that if the system got low on water the rain water would top it up.

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Had a couple from Naracoorte in SA tour my systems today. They have the fish tank and growbeds sorted but were a bit iffy on the plumbing and pumps and stuff. I hope I was a help to them

Just wish this weather would warm up

Every plant in the big system is looking fine with maybe very slight yellowing but the corn is streaky yellow all over even though it is growing. Wondering if adding some epson salts to see if its a magnesium deficiency is ok?

What's your pH??

7 and I have added chelated iron and seasol several times over the last few weeks

Can I add epsom salts or will it give my fish the sh0!ts

Just realised that dolomite is 35% magnesium and with the ph at 7, I can add some of this to get the mg levels up without affecting the ph much.
Found the below and the mg deficiency is what mine are showing

Excellent post, Mantis. Now i know what happened to my corn in GB#1.

Put a small handful of dolomite in the big system hoping to give it a magnesium boost. Time will tell.
Still getting amazing growth from the ibc system even though it only has 5 small fish in it. Must be a lot of left over nutes in there somewhere from the fishless cycling.
These 5 are moving out and 30 baby Murray Cod are going in hopefully Sunday

Silvers, catfish and bass are eating lots now in the big tank and the Jades in the greenhouse system are chowing down big time. Growth in these to systems is starting to pick up rapidly now
IBC system pics.

AP tomato pics, Plum something, Apollo and a volunteer that came up in one of my wicking beds

Big system pics, Dwarf bean bed, onion bed and everything green except the corn bed

Lookin good mantis
Are your beans direct sown?
I have trouble with them, how high do you flood that bed?
When planting in dirt i only water them in and not again till they come up so as they dont rot
Cheers

Hi Mathew. The beans are mostly seedlings that I sowed in a meat tray but some are direct sown. I sowed that bed with peas and beans but the peas rotted and the worms had fun, and only a few beans came up.
The bed has only recently been put over to constant flood, and it is flooding a bit high.
Beans and peas are easy to germinate in trays, and easy to transfer to the growbeds so I reckon the better way to do it
Forgot this pic of my beer can bomber that I got from a market years ago. Hope it keeps the black birds away a bit

Looking very cool Mantis! Did you make the aeroplane?

No Faye, I got it at a market many years ago. The guy that made them had them in all different sorts of beer cans. I got this one because I was drinking Hahn ice at the time.
My tastes in beer have improved much since then