Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

And burn it, Bear! Geez, Id hate to be a sick plant in your garden mate hahahaha

"hmmm, that silverbeet looks a bit unwell.... where's my blow torch!"

truth be told i actually wrote that post up a while ago, just didn't get around to posting it

latest going-ons is that the cucumbers have gone to hell in a hand basket.
the plants have mainly dies and those that havent have dead and dried tiny cucumbers.
i still got 3 tiny deformed cucumbers in the last batch. only one end of the fruit started to form and the other end went nowhere



the eggplants gave me lots of beautiful flowers and 3 fruit. the fruit were small but delicious.
the plants arew still going fine and i assume they are taking up some of the nutrients in the water. (currently over 50mg/l)



2 weeks ago i took a day trip up to the kineret to finally get some talapia for the system.
we made a net out of some reinforcement steel used for making concrete colums and mosquito netting and attached it to a broom stick.
we waded in to the water up to our chests, threw out a clump of bread and waited for small fish to crowd around and then ambushed them with the net.
over the course of a few hours we got about 300 tiny fish (between 3 and 5cm long)

we kept them in a bucket of oxygenated water using a portable air pump.

by the time i got back home and managed to remove most of the 30 goldfish from my tank i had about 50 dead talapia in the bucket.
there were some which were lying on the bottom and i couldn't tell if they were dead or not without picking them up. as i didn't want to do that in case them were actually alive i just dumped the lot into the tank and waited for the morning to see the true extent of the carnage.

the goldfish were kept in a bucket until i could distrobute them to neigbours and to one of the local schools which has a fish tank but no fish (some kid decided that they looked hungry over the vacation so fed them biscuites...)



by the next morning i was greeted by about 100 dead fish. some floating on the surface but quite a lot on the bottom.
whe i fished them out most of them had had their eyes and stomachs eaten away.



there are now about 150 piddlers left. (holding most of them for a neighbour who is setting up his system and taking his time)



they have a voracious appetite and are quite carnivorous. the few goldfish that i did not manage to remove have now been reduced to little more than bones.



i think i am going to have to find a way to feed them more often during the day and not just before i leave for work and when i get back. maybe that will keep them from attacking each other.

will also have to start looking for some vegetables to plant for the winter, and some way of building a hot house around the system to keep the temperatures up.

Burn Charlie burn, if a plant looks that bad I would not compost it. Trying to thing of what one cause is but can not remember. Best way is to burn and ensure the cause is not continued in your cycle.

+1 Bear, looks like powdery mildew. Too late to treat now.

Are you sure you got Talapia and not piranas?

You appear to be well read on this forum so you would know that 150 fish in a system your size is about 130 too many. Your neighbours system had better be plenty big.

yeh i know.
when i first got here i thought the system like this was only 50 too small... i've learnt a bit by reading since then

hi
hi
just noticed yr name on the forum im shalom brenner live in jerusalem planning to set up a aquaponic system
would like to meet my e-mail is shalbren1@gmail.com
(also ex south african)
cheers shalom