Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Once again.... my first system was exactly the same! I had to shove everything under the back padio and I thought it was never going to work (rental restriction eh?). I think your is doing quite well and you will find that after a while it just gets better and better. Im actually surprised the growth you have so early on.


This was my first under the back padio, it had about 6 hours of scattered sun per day.

Those leafies look awesome. I dont think i would even be getting 6 hours of sun at the moment.

The biggest killer for me though has been the wind. We get a couple of low wind days and everything really perks up.

I am really happy with my growth too considering it is only about 3 - 4 months old, and only just starting to be powered by some decent fish and fish food. I was feeding the gambrusia on tropical fish flakes only and maybe a small handful of BYAP feed a week for the yabbies.

One thing that might explain the decent growth is, the small worm farm to the side of it. About once a week i pour around 8 liters of rainwater in the top and all the water that drains out goes straight into the GB. I have read where people say the lechate is really bad and blah blah blah and that you have to use an airstone for 24hrs etc. Maybe if you are applying it to the ground it might be different because you dont get alot of air movement down there. IMHO if you are keeping it reasonably well aerated and flush the water through regularly you wont get that DO depleted problem. Essentially with the weekly water flush i get a combo of lechate and worm tea which gets aerated as it drains from the worm farm.

One thing to note though. Some people pride themselves on crystal clear water. I dont have anything near this

It will come my friend.... it will come. My first (as pictured) took about 8 months before I had crystal clear water. Trout dont help the situation thou..

If you're high school chemistry was anything like it mine; it was beaten into us, the difference between "clear" and "colourless".

Clear water has no visible suspended solids in it. If your water has is not clear, this is lack of proper filtration so either add grow beds, slow the water down if its going through the media too fast, or speed it up if it's going too slow; increase the duration of pumping through the filtration. If the solids are coloured green, this is probably associated with an algal bloom, so completely block all light for a few days and it should subside; also try to reduce the amount of nutrient (nitrates) in the water by doing a partial water change and/or stop feeding the fish and/or add more plants. Fish (especially trout) add a lot of solids to the water, so a considerable effort is required to maintain clear water.

Colourless water has no colour, duh. Most AP systems I have experienced have a brown tint to the water, something akin to weak tea (without milk!)

My AP water is clear, but is rarely colourless (although the brown tint comes and goes)


Scott

hmmm yea... correction. I didnt mean "crystal" clear water. More like clear "tea" water as per bunsons explanation.

Yep me too

I have crystal clear tea coloured water. Dark tea coloured water. From the weekly worm tea addition. My water has been nothing but crystal clear with only a bit of solids build up on the bottom which has been disappearing over the last few days.

I did have some algae starting to appear on the sides, however shade cloth has fixed this right up

You'll also find different fish feeds have different effects on the discolouration of the water; as will adding products like Seasol, chelated iron etc.

Does the BYAP feed change the colour of the water?

TBH i dont really care what the colour of the water is as long as it is healthy for the fish and plants. The comment about the colour was only for anyone reading that is concerned about it and thinking they could add the same amount of worm juice to their system.

It is super mega happy fun photo update time!

As you can see i havnt really added any new plants. Just let the existing ones grow a bit more. The growth also doesnt look as strong as usual because i have been trimming the capsicum back a bit. It really would be like a tree if i didnt



Next is a really bad photo of one of my trout. It also shows the colour of my water. I tried to get a video of them feeding but it has disappeared off my camera



Here you can see how big the rhubarb is getting. I am seriously considering removing it. The dirty sunlight hog There is also some snow peas in the mix there as well that are really starting to take off.



The next photo shows the damage that the wind has been doing. My wind break has been doing an excellent job, but every now and then we get a strong northerly that just hammers everything.



Here is a small portion of my capsicum plant. These fruit are going to be huge by the time they ripen up. I just hope it doesnt get too cold first. I dont know how they will handle the really cold nights we have been getting.



Same again for my chilli plant. It has heaps of fruit and has just put on a heap more but i am uncertain how well they will grow. Hopefully being under cover will protect them from the worst of the cold. Plus being in a body of water might help too.



I took this next shot to show what i meant about the whole lack of sunlight. I am considering some tomatoes or something that will grow a bit bigger than the other plants and can get out past the wind break like that rockmellon vine growing up past the capsicum. All that dead scraggly stuff is going to get ripped out and replaced, whether it be tomatoes or some other winter veg. Any suggestions?



I also put some bird netting over the water after i put my trout in which as you can see still needs to be trimmed up. The trout are starting to hit the food at the surface now which is exciting. There arnt many gambrusia left either and the few that are remaining stick close together and hide. MWAHAHAHA

There is still a bit of sediment left at the bottom after the introduction of the trout, but i will be moving the wavemaker so that will hopefully take care of it.

"B" sell "windbreak" material, similar to shade cloth but only 35% and much cheaper. You can disrupt some of the wind without losing too much sunshine. Windbreak is heaps cheaper than shade cloth too.

Thanks for the tip bunson. It might be something i have to consider but i really dont want to. It is in the main patio area and a bit of a focal point when we have people over. I would like for it to look semi reasonable and my handiwork isnt anything to write home about as can be seen. I will keep a mental note on how many days we get that cause problems and make my decision then.

I finally had my first proper AP harvest the other day Not a lot of stuff but im happy



I totally removed the rhubarb, basil and beans and replaced them with lettuce, onion and cherry tomatoes so far.



You can see below that all my years in a trade has given me a straight eye. Or maybe it was something else...



I had thought that my snow peas were not really doing much because of the rhubarb, but once it was gone i saw some of these.



My system as it stands so far.



I still have a bit of room between the cherry toms and the silver beet which i need to get some seedlings for. Any suggestions?

Looks great mate.

Maybe some hrebs like corriander, basil etc. Or give some carrots or radish a go

Hi Ryan, doh! I was just about to say don't remove the rhubarb plant just remove all the leaves. Too late With the peas, we find the more that you pick, the more that they grow, so don't hold back.