Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Any pictures. The ponds sound very beautiful... go'on AP them it would be great! Maybe set up a creek flowing into the top one then over flow to the bottom, plant a heap of native rushes and sedges, can see it now

The snakes play their part, just keep out of their way. I have two resident copperheads (much less dagerous mind you) in my garden, as well a the odd tiger in summer, the result no house mice.

Not sure about the options for sealing the pond sorry. C1 might know he has done alot of concreting.

Hi SG, don't know if your interested, or anyone else .... location Hervey Bay AQUACULTURE CONCRETE TANK MOULD

If you're any good with formwork/concrete you could probably make your own moulds

That is beautiful!

If you were to concrete the pond i would suggest using heavy gauge wire as a support instead of chicken wire. The Chicken wire gets wrecked pretty fast and we have found the heavy gauge holds out much longer.

I have heard of the cane toads on the Discovery channel on Sat TV. Sounds like a disaster on the propgram - reproduce by the millions, poisonous to touch, spreading like wildfire across the North.

Your on the front lines. Is it as bad as they make out? I heard they were introduced from South America to eat some crop eating beetle and they had no predators because of poison skin. You post makes it sound like only a nuisance. I am curious.

Cane toads are a real problem, they have poison glands that will kill just about anything that eats them, they are not dangerous to touch, though I would suggest washing your hands before handling any food.

A lot of native animals look at the cane toad as an ugly frog and think hey natural food source eat and die

They were introduced into the Sugar cane fields in Queensland to eat and control the sugar cane beatle ( another introduced species) except sugar cane beatles live near the top of sugar cane and the cane toads think I could make an effort to climb the sugar cane to get to the beatle or I could feast on all the bugs at ground level ( cane toads are not good climbers).
Cane toads are a real mega enviromental disaster and have spread south into New South Wales and west into the Northern Territory killing native bugs birds and animals plus domestic cats and dogs.

But in the true Aussie spirit in adverse conditions we play down the seriousness of the problem, this is not to be taken that we do not care as millions of dollars are spent annually to try prevent the spread and into research to eliminate this intoduced plague.
Do an Australian google search for Cane toads and then do one for cane toads souvenirs ( for a laugh)
Cheers
Ron

Wow Ron
Sounds like they were not exagerating on the program. I understand importing cane toads with the idea of getting rid of the beetles (although it was a terrible idea - poorly thought out and then not properly tested) - damn those involved! Why would they have imported the beetle? Or did it hitch a ride on a plane without permission ( I know of many instances of that happening).

Ron, more on the topic on concrete tanks for AP. I have a 24'x5'x6' deep tank in my greenhouse. It was poured about 14 months ago and not even a hairline crack has developed. They used a six bag mix (more cement in the mix) and a polymer additive. Of course it has a lot of rebar and mesh as well. Anywhere there is frost heave (like here), concrete tanks usually develop cracks and leak over time.

In your weather, the only concern I see is wether your ground heaves around (like from wet/dry cycling. Do you know about any existing concrete ponds in your area? Nothing like finding a successful example before you invest money. Let us all know what you decide to do and how it works.

i must say stevegeen thats one nice looking pond you got there!!

Hey, wheres C1? is he ok, i'd have expected him to chime in with some concrete expertise....................C1?

I think he's too busy DOING concreting to talk about it at the moment

That garden is seriously pretty.

flying foxes. Took me back to Queensland immediately. I loved it up there. I want to go back but with all you aussie AP'ers I wouldn't get to be unique

Maybe take comedy back up be the first travelling AP comedy show?

'a fish walked into a bar....'

C1... trying to catch up here, Asitis thanks for the reco...