Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

a bit of an update.

had a lot of algae growing in the water and it wasnt getting any clearer i bought a couple sheets of "polygon" which is corrogated plastic (like cardboard box sheet made of plastic) and surrounded the tank to keep the sun off the water.

also, put a piece of scotch brite into the pump to get out the sand and algae... seems to have worked well.
after only a few days the water is now much clearer and the bottom is almost visable now



recently put in a few peppers and eggplants and they are doing ok

here are some shots i took today

cucumbers:



peppers:



eggplant:



tomatoes:



only problem is that i now have insect issues (tunneling in cucumber leaves, and cracked/dry patches on leaves)... any idea what this is and the best way to control it?

Nice feeling when your water clears up isnt it. Good work. It really pays dividends to cover in the FT.

yip

the dirt coming out of the scotch brite looks like pea soup... brownish green, but the water is getting better every day

now to solve my other problems... and to find some fish! not easy around here

this is what the scotch brite looks like after just one day of sucking up sand and algae



I have since figured out how to siphon out 99% of the sand from the bottom of the tanks using a garden hose.

the water now looks a whole lot better than it ever has



still trying to get talapia but with no luck - i may now be too late in the season, so at least i will continue with the goldfish for this year and then make a point of getting fingerlings early next spring.

the cucumbers are doing OK



except that there are some tunneling bug issues. I need to find an insectiside i can use that wont kill/damage the fish.
any suggestions?
leaves also have some dry/cracked spots which is very wierd... maybe too much sun and i need to put up some shade cloth.
temperatures are usually in the upper 20's right now (will be much hotter in aug) but we have had some days in the upper 30's too.
one day i checked the water temp at 5pm - it was 30 degrees... at 5am the next morning it was still 28 degrees





tomatoes are still very small and growing very slowly



'scuse the rotated photo - photobucket has been acting wierd recently and i have no idea of how to rotate the photo

Egg planta are also growing new leaves. but they also seem to have some tiny black spikes on the leaves. not sure if this is normal or due to bugs. (you can see them on the dark leave at the bottom of the photo)



and then the nicest surprise of all...

my first pepper has sprouted
it's now about an inch long

latest update on this saga...

stuck my fingers into the water early the other morning to pull out a floating leaf and felt a little tickle!
tried it again just to be sure i wasn't imagining it, and lo, I wasn't.
once i got home i checked with a muti meter... nothing. fingers in... nothing. wiggled the power chord... nothing

by wednesday it wasn't so much a tickle anymore as a jolt all the way up the arm!

on thursday i had the day off so i took the pump back to the shop where i had bought it and we stripped it only to find that the rotor shaft had snapped and the rotor was a bit caked with sand.
cleaned it out and stuck a new shaft in, except that we couldnt find a shaft that was exactly the correct length. (owner promised me that it would be fine and not to worry)

got home and plugged it in for a dry test only to have the pump dance around on the table and make an awful racket.

on friday i took it back and ended up buying a new pump just so that i can have the system working properly until we can get this one fixed. by now the plants had been without water for over 24 hours and were looking decidedly worse for wear.
I asked the owner to source me a new shaft, but i'm not holding my breath.

the original pump is a hailea HX-8830F (3000 litre per hour)
the new pump has exaxctly the same model number, but is about half the weight and considerably shorter.

if anyone knows where i can get a spare shaft for the original one I'd be much obliged.
I have sent a message to the manufacturers in china but so far no response.

anyway, new pump is now in and things are back to normal. even the water which for some reason began to cloud up last week has cleared again over night

one small problem now (there always has to be something) is that my eggplant leaves are starting to look sunburnt.

any idea what this is and how to solve it? maybe it isn't sunburn but something else?





good news tho is that the pepper is growing nicely and we have a couple others that are starting up as well

Why would the shaft give you a jolt? This sounds more like an electrical problem. Might want to look this over before trying to return it to service.

The eggplant probably just needs some shade (seems like the normal area for it). If there was water on the leaf while the sun was out that could have caused this and it might also be due to a fungus. Sorry I can't help more with this one.

BUMP

any one else have any suggestions?

how do i check if this is fungus or not?
if this is fungus how do what do i do?

please people... I need some help before my system dies!

Pull off the affected leaves?

Ok, maybe I can help a bit more . There really isn't any test to determine if it's a fungus that I know of (short of looking under a microscope). Just keep the leaves from getting wet and that should help if it's a fungus. Removing the affected leaves as arbe mentioned can be a good way to remove infectious material (I would get rid of these but wouldn't compost them). Since I'm not certain this is really a fungus it would be a toss up in my opinion. Are the leaves getting worse or is the damage spreading? If they aren't I wouldn't go looking for problems, it's probably just sun damage.

Still think this looks most like sun damage as you mentioned initially.

Tiny spider mites sometimes cause leaves to dry out. If you've tried shading the plants and you're still having troubles look on the underside of the leaf for any webbing. The leaves get a sandpapery appearance. The mites are almost to small to see but their webbing is slightly more obvious.

hi all

seems to have been sunburn. it hasn't spread anymore

I'll put some shade cloth up when i get the chance.

we now have some cucumbers starting to grow.
the biggest is about 1.5cm long (israeli cucumbers, so they will get to a max of 20cm)

hi all

I put up some shade cloth but I'm not sure if it caused me more trouble than it's worth so i have taken it down for the time being.

the cucumber plants have gone absolutely balistic. they are taking over the world as can be seen below, but the leaves are being eten by tunneling insects





also, the cucumber which had grown to almost 5cm long just went vrot and shrivelled up.
some of the other big ones have started to do the same.

no idea what the reason is. ANYONE?
tomatoes are still plodding along slowly



eggplant is growing wild, but the lower leaves are turning a horrible yellow. the rest is thriving tho



peppers are doing well too, with one fruit per plant right now. 2 of them are growing straight up and 2 are growing very bent over. the fifth is too small to tell...

The tunneling insects are probably Leaf Miners. I'm not sure what's going on with the cucs but this is something I've seen before. It can be poor polination, pests or diseases. I'm going to guess it's poor polination in this case. The cure is hand pollination but I usually get enough that I don't bother. You can find information on line about how to do this.

picked my first batch of cucumbers.



also decided that the pepper plants were not growing fast enough so i plucked the 5 peppers off so that they can concentrate on providing nutrients to the plant itself and not to the veggies



increadible feeling to get to eat them

got some white fly now but will get some traps shortly

a quick update:

eggplants are blossoming... they have the most beautiful flowers



i now have 3 eggplants about the size of tennis balls and a couple more starting out



the tomatoes are doing ok, but not growing anywhere fast.

also the lower leaves seem to be affected by some bug/disease and are going black



also, after getting about 10 cucumbers all the others are just shrivelling up (some of them are actually growing to over 5cm long before they just die



also many of the leaves are just dryinh out or getting patchy and look like they are infected aswell



pepper plants are going nowhere.

I suppose it wasn't bad for a first round.
I'll start thinking of what to plant come winter and hopefully we will do better then

If that is the cucumber vine I would pull it out and burn it.