Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice growth happening there Nat and congrats on the new arrivals. Will have to start that expansion now

I guess you have that extra space now that the three dozen chicks you have hatched moved on.

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So this is what you do on your days off Nat
It looks great, I had a bit of a rundown on it from Joel, now I see. Such a neat, cheap and little system.

what do you intend to grow in it, being low it would be perfect for something tall like corn or runners with a trellis behind it, or for the kids eh...
tank too small for eating fish though i think.
either way it looks great and cheap and easy to make

Being low, it would be perfect for the old folks home or people in wheelchairs.

Edit: Hey, now there's an untapped market for you Joel

yer i can see this getting lots of attention from kids, perfect hight for grabbing handfuls of clay

here is a link to the system three barrel system

Hey Nat how do you find the Pygmys go? ive seen them in shops and thought it would be cool to have a few native WA fish in the sump. What do they eat?

they are fine and a lot better at staying out of the yabbies reach then the gold fish
im feeding them 3mm floating pellets

Nat,

I noticed in a previous post the picture of a yabby but back at the start of the thread you had a photo of a bag of "shrimp" - is this just a naming thing (WA vs VIC) or did you start off with shrimp and then put in some yabbies later?

In regards to the yabbies, how many do you have in a single blue barrel? I have a few spare blue barrels and I am thinking of putting together a small system and one idea that my wife and I like the sound of is to stock it with yabbies. However, I have read somewhere else that yabbies will eat each other and so I was wondering how many you have in a single barrel and if you have any issues with them eating each other?? I also assume that you put some sort of structure in the barrel for them to live in....what did you use?

I seem to recall seeing a post a few days ago that said you were working on a two barrel system with two halves (cut lengthways) supported by one barrel underneath......I am looking forwards to seeing this one once you unveil it!!

Cheers,

Gags

yep I have both yabbies and feeder shrimp in there and they do eat each other as I put lots of small yabbies in and have only about 3 or 4 big ones

they must be breading as I sometimes see babies

I don't have many hides in there just a glass jar and some pvc

Have more photos but I need to get a new charger for the laptop first



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this is the link to the three barrel system http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=13736

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Thanks for the head's up. Out of interest, what do you feed the tabbies (apart from other tabbies??).

I have got a pretty well endless supply of blue barrels available to me and I am wondering if I could potentially make a system that consists of 1.5 barrel systems in a T shape (as per your system) but then put multiples of them next to each other and join the FTs together at about their mid level with a large poly fitting that is big enough to allow fish/yabbies to find their way between barrels without getting stuck. If I buy a big enough pump up front then I could potentially keep expanding with a line of these "T" systems all connected to each other.

Do you think that this would be feasible? If so, would the large poly pipe connector idea be OK or would I be better off joining them together using smaller pipe with the ends covered in mesh so that the fish/yabbies stay in whatever tank they are put in initially??

I am also currently scribbling down a few other options on paper including perhaps having three vertical barrels in a row and joined together as the FT (would be just under 600 litres if not filled quite to the top) and then constructing a wooden frame to support 4 grow beds that would each be a barrel cut in half lengthways (approx 400 litres of growbed).

Might have to wait until the weekend and then play around a bit to see what might be a suitable configuration.

I'd forget about using the blue barrels as fish tanks... it would be like a battery hen operation...

But cutting them in half lengthways ... as grow beds... good idea...

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