Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

With 6 kids and no time, we chose for BYAP to install our two entertainer system for us. We have been devouring information from all you knowledgable people here so now for the fun to begin. It was a stinking hot day and I felt sorry the roof had been removed already. Kids asked heaps of questions and got lots of answers. Now we need to fight them off to get near it

I hope you all get much entertain(er)ment from your system...

Great clear photos there Geedee, what sort of camera have you got?
We didn't hear about the clay balls

Looks like an excuse to play marbles i think



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I was once young and stupid, i'm not so young now

Congratulations GeeDee! It's nice to see kids involved with such a worthwhile endeavor. Keep the pictures coming as the plants come in.

We are hoping the kids will get involved. They all seem keen at the moment let's hope it lasts. Faye my camera is a Nikon D40x, it does take a good photo. The 12 year old took these, she was camera girl for the day

Hi,
Having some problems with pests at the moment. Not sure what to use to get rid of them. anybody know what these may be?
System was cyled with urea and took about 4 weeks. George has added chelated iron, seasol and eco rose at different times. Our corn seems to be browing on the leaves, something has been nibbling on the peas that have grown from seed and we lost all the cucumbers and zucchini's and no lettuce has survived but we think that may be the heat we've had. Beetroot, silverbeet and rhubarb are doing well.

Hi Denise and George, the top pic is caterpillar droppings.
The second pic shows the caterpillar and I am not sure if there are also eggs or aphids.
The third pic looks like the damage done by caterpillar.
The answer is pick off the caterpillars and feed to the fish but also to apply Dipel, an organic certified product that upsets the gut of the caterpillar causing its death, still feed to the fish. Reapply after rain and weekly. For aphids hopefully the ladybirds will arrive.
We had an aphid infestation on our dill over the last month and then we had ladybirds breed, as their young feast on the aphids, they have mostly all disappeared. We also have lots of praying mantis babies feasting on our pests, I just love the cycle of nature.
You can also use sticky traps for aphids.

I just remembered we also have wasps hovering around looking for caterpillars to feed their young, we don't have too many caterpillars at the moment.

An update on our system.
It's been tunning for about 4 mths now and is showing some nice results. Things seem to be growing well at last. Got our trout last month and the kids love watching them get fed. Silver perch are boring they say.

More pics

Looking good Denise & George...

Some of the fish

That system is a credit to you all. The more that you pick the more things will grow. I have found the things that just keep on giving and you can virtually pick all year round are celery, silverbeet, parsley, chives and garlic chives.

Thanks Rupert and Faye. I know we have done as well as we have because we followed all the advice we have found on here and from BYAP staff. We have only lost 1 fish and that was a trout who escaped before we covered the tank
My advice to any one else starting out is read the info here and take the advice given and you can't go wrong. We even have kids eating silverbeet and loving it because they have grown it themselves
Oh and the best thing we learned is ...patience! patience! patience!