Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

FWIW my shell grit is all over the floor of the tank for 6 of the 9 months (stockings got a ladder!!) and i have about 500gms in one grow bed. I'm sure it is doing its bit to buffer the water but it is too slow and needs a helping hand.

I should say that my water is rain water out of a concrete tank.

best of luck. I know how you feel

Thanks for the feed back mate. I am using rain water too, although out of a plastic tank.

I suspect that the rain water has less stuff in it too help buffer as well and the shell grit just cant keep up.

my rain water has a brown tinge from the tannins (eucalyptus and Casuarina) and as it runs of the tank roof it erodes the walls of the tank. But the water in the tank is at a pH of 9 from the concrete. Water from my other tank - iron with a liner has a pH that varies but usually sits around the 6 mark. The water that is delivered comes in as whatever but ends up the same depending what tank it goes into.
For Aquaponics, water from the concrete tank is fine and every little bit helps but doing water changes for the aquariums can be a tad challenging.

The fun of living in the sticks!!

I know a simple way to fix the problem with your aquariums.... Add a grow bed.

My aquarium grow bed is useless as a grow bed for anything except succulents that love dry feet. Go figure. I still need to do water changes for the nitrates, but not as often as i would otherwise. Aloe vera goes mad in AP btw.

LOL. Ryan you can come 'round for a beer or 2 and sell it to the War Office !! she is trying to get rid of the tanks - got rid of 2 so far . can you imagine what she would say if she thought i was adding grow beds

Great idea though.

I will do that for you Mark

After we move next month i will try and get mine looking like something you can convince her with. I have a few ideas to make it a nice little indoor garden.

Honestly i was amazed at how fast these things are growing. I added on in about 3 weeks ago and the tag said 'very slow growing.' Well it has doubled in size since then so they must have a different meaning for very slow growing.

Plus i am keen to take a look at your system. I will hit you up next time im heading down for sure.

you're on. looking forward to it.

So 2 things have happened in the last 2 days. Firstly i have been correcting my pH which is now around 7ish.

Secondly the water temp has risen a few degrees.

My silvers are now hitting the food like my trout did.

Silvers are ok fish to keep again

My response exactly Marc!

Yipee!!!

Time for a little update. Pulled a few of the bigger raddishes and an onion out. I put the water test kit bottle there for scale.



I am not too sure what happened to this guy...



I also gave it all a bit of a tidy up. You can see the brahmi struggle with the tomatoes stealing all the sunlight.



It still isnt very tidy though



I know i keep harping on about lack of sunlight, but these bunches are less than a metre apart. Guess which one is on a plant with more light.





I know the photo doesn't really show it, but there is a significant size difference.

I went to go and eat one of my radishes the day after i harvested it and it was really squishy. Inside it looked like this.



All of the radishes are squidgey like that one was

Unlucky with the radishes. I harvested heaps of stuff I could not eat due to some imperfection.

Great work on the veggies as a whole though. Wish mine were storming along like that.

Thanks mate. Unfortunately i will probably not see much fruit from a lot of this stuff because i am likely moving this week.

Hows it looking Ryan? You must be moving now eh? Or moved?

Give us the goss ol mate!