Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I think those are just for state lakes and stuff.
I've been using this list.
http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/farmlist.txt

I did go to the pet store this last weekend and bought three little koi and 10 mosquito fish.
The koi are staying at the bottom and i haven't actually seen them since I put them in.

So i guess that's progress.

Suppose there would be any problems with keeping koi and blue gill?

i would think koi and bluegill would work well together, if the koi spawn, the bg would eat the fry, and keep the population in check

Should be getting blue gill in about 2 weeks.
The pond water is pretty dark, and full of algae. Been debating getting a uv sterilizer so that maybe we could get the water to clear up a little bit and we could verify if any of the koi are still alive in there.

you don't need the uv sterilizer.. just make sure that the tank is covered and getting lots of air

Hmmm, skull shaped pond to be seen from Google Earth... How about a shade cloth in the shape of a skull. Make it larger than the actual pond or the sun will sneak in the sides and hit the water. Probably what the issue is now - an algea bloom.
Or square shaped shade cloth with skull design...
Interesting.

Got a good base for those growbed stands?

Drop some bailey straw in the pond..

Bailey straw has an enzyme that kills off the algae..

Juergen

The stands are just tanding straight on the dirt or what passes for dirt here(sand, rock, and clay). they have two coats of varnish on them so I'm hoping that'll keep them from rotting.

I did buy a bag of barley pellets and i put those in but they don't seem to be helping either. I was thinking i might get more surface plants to help with shade. Because i'd rather not have to put a huge thing of shad cloth up in the back yard. Cause at that point about 2/3rds of the back yard would be shaded.

So the water is starting to warm up. It's been in the high 50's low 60's this week. The koi seem to be pretty hungry and energetic. They've been swimming around the outer edges of the pond and look like they're doing laps.
The bluegill aren't eating and stay completely out of site. Maybe once a week I see one nab a piece of koi food, but they haven't seemed interested in chilid food, freeze dried blood worms, or anything else. I ordered some aquamax and I'm hoping they'll be more interested in that. The mosquito fish are plenty happy to eat the blood worms instead. The pond is starting to go green again so i'm going to cover it in shade cloth for a while.
The levels are all sitting at 0 still. So the stuff in the grow beds isn't doing much.

Hey Stephanie Did you find that your Koi Did not want to eat much over Winter..?

Shade the pond or you will go green again..

Or you could try extra Filtration.. Remove the Nitrates and there nothing for the algae to feed on..

Juergen

Build a biofilter for the pond. Just run it 2 times a week for 12 hours at a time and that should clear it up.

So I did something stupid. One of the pipes came loose and leaked so fixed it and then added some water. Added too much new water created a ph swing and probably didn't get rid enough of the chlorine and i've lost half my blue gill. 2 died the first day. And then 1 has been dying almost every other day. And i think i've lost count of how many are in there now. And i can't always see them if they sink in the deep part of the pond until something happens and they float to the top with snails attached. All the other levels are fine but ph is at about 8.8.

Koi and mosquitto fish do not seem to be affected.

I'm starting to wonder if i should even get more blue gill and maybe stick to koi.

Have any room for a backup water tank? Just in case you happen to need some clean fresh water that's been degassed/declorinated/airated with a bubbler?
Maybe once a month or so you can use it for topping up the system. Then top up the backup tank and your good to go again.

I have room for one but i haven't bought it yet. I will be doing that this week.