Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A good news is that some vegie plants bagan to produce:
It looks like I will have a lot of cucumber because, being unsure where it will work, I threw a lot of cucumber seeds.

But strawbery plants, about 6 of them, had shown no fruit yet in 9 weeks!!
I would say that is unsusual.

damn, couldnt you have started off with the bad news, then amazed us with the awesome pics of the good stuff so we forget anything bad?

the good stuff is looking great, hope the bad thing isnt to bad.

Now for bad news: 3 gold fish died about a week ago, more or less one per day.
One was a big one, and two were small.

I was more alarmed when the big one died since I expect the bigger fish would would developed more resistance. The dead body of the small fish show that the body is disifigured: the first one has a chipped tail. The second one's eye came out.
I do not want to say "gross!!" I want to know the reason.

the first pic looks like the tail has been eaten away? and the 2nd pic of the black fish also looks quite munched?

maybe your not feeding enough or often enough and they are attacking each other?

goldfish can be like that i believe. will eat anything including each other

the eye missing would be caus other fish have chewed on it. sort of like how they will nibble on your hand if you put your hand in there tank.

Bad news continued.
Today, I found a fish with open wound.
Then, I found more and more, I counted about 6. But there could be more.
I succeed to catch 5 of them, and placed them in a large plastic bowl.
I put some salt in the (pond) water in the bowl. That was about five hours ago. It appears that wounds are healing a litle bit, but still too early to tell. My biggest concern is whether more fish will be affected.
What is difficult to understand is that water is relatively clear and water test shows nothing unusual (ph 7.8, ammonia 0.25).

I added some new water, and may do some vaccuming of pond floor to remove dirt, which is not much. I wonder what is the cause of desease and wound.

Two new grow beds were planted two weeks ago, one with seedlings, and another with seeds.
The one with seeds bagan to show sprout.
Will probably have to wait for another 4-5 weeks to see significant growth.
This growth rate is not like some explosive growth that we see in some member's site.
I wonder why the difference.
I did not have high nitrate readings.
Wonder whether this is the cause.

Sejin

Today, we had our first big consumption of our AP lettuce.
Barbacued meat wrapped in fresh lettuce.
This lettuce was from seeds. I had to cut like lawn mowing because, unsure of result, I had sprayed too many seeds.

I am now preparing for setting up multiple grow trays for my long shelve.
There will be 16 grow trays of 60L size, and I do not want to spend too much money for stand pipe and drain for each one of them. I have examined what other people have done, but I want a cheaper way. I came up with two methods.
The first method is to use 19 mm gromet to go through tray wall, then use 25 mm tube as stand pipe that fits on the gromet.
I have no doubt that this will work.
What do you think?
But I think I will use an even cheaper way.

Here is a cheaper way:
Put a 25 mm rubber tube through a 25 mm hole. This may be good enough but I will put a 19 mm poly tube whose external diameter is 22 mm whch is the same as the internal diameter of 25 mm rubber tube. It will look like this.
There seemds to be enough tightness.
I may try to find a tube that has an external diameter which is slightly larger, 23 or 24 mm. That will be even tighter.
But I cannot think of a cheaper way.
Anyone disagreeing?

I intend to grow some trees on AP way.
As a first trial, I am using a 30cm pot to grow a perssimons tree. I had planted one in my front garden. Now I want to try another one in AP way. I am not connecting this one to the system yet. I did not remove the soil in the root area that came in the pot that I bought. Instead, I am using a meshed pot to place the whole content of the original pot, then I put it into a larger pot and fill it with expanded clay balls. This pot has a 19mm hole at the bottom. For the time being I water it by hand twice a day. Eventually it will be moved to a bigger pot and linked to my AP system.
Will this work? Will it grow faster than the one planted on soil?

Sorry don't have any suggestions for your questions or for the fish ulcers, but I like the pictures!

I understand that ammonia levels are dependant on the time of the day. It might be the case that the levels are higher when you are at work than when you test, so that could be the cause of the fish problems.

You should be seeing zero ammonia in a healthy system. if you are not then reducing the feed is worth while.

Dont forget that it takes a little while before your new grow beds come online as far as their processing capacity goes.

Different times of the year will give different growth rates. I found the best growth in spring and early summer. Most people report the amazing growth times because they are also amazed, so dont expect insane growth rates ovr winter. The fact that your tomatoes and capsicum/chilli plants are fruiting at all is amazing enough

Your system looks great!

What were your nitrite levels when you did that test that saw .25 ammonia?

Hang in there with the fish, someone in the know will reply (edit: I see bullie beat me too it). Have you check gemmels sticky thread on fish diseases?

Your veggies look great. Don't be disappointed with not having explosive growth. You already have established and fruiting plants in the system, they might be out competing the seedlings. At least all you plants are health with such a high density. At high density I think the explosion comes when ALL seed(ling)s are planted at the same time, eventually things slow down a bit if you don't have ridiculous stock numbers.

On my first seeding, everything exploded, then my plant density depleted nutrient output of fish and plants started getting sick. I ripped most of them out. Now with more fish, some large plants, and some new seeds/seedlings, the seeds are not "exploding" like they did before. But on a whole, everything seems healthier.

I could be wrong....

That was my style since childhood even though my sister always did the way you would have prefered. wonder why.
A simple way to describe the difference in the two orientations is optimist versus pessimist. Although I am not the same person that I was when I was young, i still seem to choose the pessimist way. It is an intersting psychological issue to be explained.

I know that if a movie were made this (pessimist) way, it will never be a commercial success. On the other hand, i seem to think that putting the good news at the end is like putting good apples on top of a basket of rotten ones.

Australia, like America, may be a country of optimism. After twenty years in Australia, i have'nt yet become an optimist yet.
And I still can't say "No worries."

Ahh no worries sejin.lol.

Love it.takes the stress out of life...
Sorry to here about your fish mate.hope you get on top of it. Any luck on google? Did it start when you brought those other two grow beds online?

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