Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looking good Sam, and well done with the trout.

That reminds me, time to get my tommies planted.

Cheers Charlie.

I already had some tommies planted (Roma's I think). But I came across these 2 and remembered how much of a good sales pitch the heirlooms normally get. So I thought I would give them a shot.

That is an excellent size fish Sam. Congrats mate.

Cheers mate.

Any Updates? Curious how you went cleaning the bottom of the tanks?
From what i saw early on, your slo's seem incorrect.. Slots all the way up?

Shouldnt they be capped and holes in the bottom 1/4 only so it draws the crud from the base of the tank?

PS: Excellent system, its very very similar to my own!

Great minds think alike....

Yeah I got the bottom of the tank cleaned out ok. Netted a few more fish yesterday and I could still see the bottom of the tank when I was done. Just used a larger version of what I use to clean my aquarium.

The slots lay along the bottom of the tank. Because it is a square tank with a flat bottom, I have the pipes laying in a cross to try to cover most of the tank. The slots are probably 1/3 to 1/2 way through the pipe.

It doesn't perform quite as well as I would have expected, but I'm not sure if that's to do with the slots being too large, or too many, or lack of flow rate to draw the solids up the SLO (or maybe just high expectations on my part).

I might try some modifications at some point, but I will wait until I have the trout out of the tank.

Speaking of the trout....

I checked the water temps today, given the ambient got up to 34 deg C, and I found the water temp in the fish tank was 25 ish. Now the thermometer I was using is not calibrated (or all that expensive) but it is a little concerning. While I am working my way through the fish, I was hoping not to have to do a mass cull.

So the high temps spurred me into hooking up the new air pump I got for the system. Now instead of 12 L/min, the fish have a spa (also known as 88 L/min) courtosy of a Resun air pump (ACO-006).

I have also rolled the shade cloth back down to try to help keep the direct sun off the gorw bed media (I had it tied up for winter). I found these neat bungy straps in the big B today.

The work quite nicely to anchor the shade cloth down (via the PVC pipe I already had at the bottom) to the trellis frame, but I can still easily gain access but just unhooking them.

Stops it from flapping around in the wind.

Make sure the pipe can't come loose... or unglued...

I lost a batch of trout once with airlines attached to pipes... and a howling storm lifting the shade cloth... pipes and all...

Thanks for the warning. But in those case, the PVC pipe on the shade cloth is there only to hold the shade cloth down. It serves no other purpose.

So with the weather warming up, and me being off travelling for a couple of weeks, it was time for the rest of the trout to come out.

And not a moment too soon. Ended up pulling 3 floaters (or rather sinkers out). Didn't look like they had been there too long. Probably in the last week or so. Shame two of them were decent sized.

But the rest came out....


After we had gutted and cleaned them, we ended up with just over 5kg of fish. So i'm happy.

With the winner being this fine specimen



I'm going to leave the system running fish-less while I'm away, and see about some barramundi when I get back.

So I'm back from a couple of weeks away, and boy am I glad I staked up the plants in the AP before I left.

I'm not sure whether its the weather (not that you would know today), but the plant growth has exploded. Especially the tomatoes.



Ironically I've gone from being worried about having bare grow beds, to being concerned about over crowding.

Second set of grow beds.



Out of interest, what have you found to be the best way to manage determinate tomato varieties in your AP (pruning, staking etc).

Determinate tomatoes.. are "Bush" tomatoes... so they don't benefit from pruning like indeterminate varieties...

You can stake them if you like... or just let them ramble wild...

Yea I make this mistake every year and my tommies totally engolf my GB's. This year Im going for a different approach.

p.s. Nice trout and growth you have there

So a question for the guru's out there.

I've just measured the levels in my system (now 12 months old), and have found the ph is 8.8 (possibly higher, as that was as far as the test kit went). And I am wondering why....

When I tested the water 1 month ago, it had ph 8.0. But that was after the water automatic water top-up stuck open and flooded the system (tap water is ~8.0). So it wasn't surprising.

Looking at the system today the water in the FT was looking murky, so I tested the water, and was surprised by the result.

The ammonia and nitrites are both 0, with the nitrates 60-80 ish.

Any idea's what's going on???