Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

ok update time once again as its been a couple months

1. Old system, currently doing very well, silvers are eating good, plants are growing good, pulled out a white beetroot the other day(didnt know what it was, i thought it was some weird silverbeet with a big base haha) and the chard is growing like a boss in there, the cabbages are getting mauled by caterpillars tho. Planted some new seeds in there the other day and I put in the runt trout from the other system to see how it goes in there for a bit.

2. big system, wow plants are going crazy in there, was away overseas for a week and came back to a forrest, had to do some culling, i was trying ot let all the brocs and pak choi go to see but had to pull some out to plant more seeds. Had quite a bit of gunk in teh main tank, the water still has suspended material in it but not as much as a few weeks ago, added some shell grit to one of the GB outlets to try and buff the PH as it still reading as 6 despite adding probably 5 tablespoons of ecorose(not all at once ive been putting 1teaspoon in every few days) Not sure how much eco to put it to raise the ph, im taking it safe as I cant tell how much it is rising, figured some shellgrit would put calcium in the system anyway and gradually rise the ph.

Ate my first trout, smoked with hickory chips, was awesome!

Put the pump in the FT and drained most of it to the growbeds to get some of the gunk off the bottom, not having air in there the water isnt moving as much as it should be, so im getting a bit of a buildup. Got my air pump in the mail yesterday... oh yeah I accidently killed my other air pump! This time i went to two aco1 pumps, that way I have one here if one dies so im not without air at all.

Ok quick update, nothing major has happened other then I have 60 freshwater mussels in the systems, about 55 in the big system where 20 are in teh FT and the rest are split into the sumps. Initially I had all in the sump and they have done an awesome job of clearing the sediment on the bottom of the tanks.

update time once again...

Got 22 pygmy perch for my main system, they are quite happy in the sump tanks and have moved into all 3 interconnected ones within about 10min of being released. Some pretty large perch in there but most would be half sized ones. Hopefully my mussels now have a host fish they can use in the future and the pygmy's eat any mozzies hanging around.

Have my sole barra in my big system too, hes a shy bugger, not very animated like the trout! should be getting more barra on the weekend all things being equal.

Also got sick of having ot manually top up my sump tanks on the big system, and as I had a pipe going right next to the systems thats hooked up to the bore I have added a T piece off that and installed a plastic toilet cistern valve thingymagig into the sump, have yet to test it out as the PVC glue I had was buggered, but should be testing it out tonight, hopefully it keeps everything nice and topped up.

Been thinking of selling my small IBC setup so I can expand on that side some more growbeds off my main system, I think I can use the space better then just the small system, shoudl be able to fit either 2 IBC's there or i'll cut up an IBC and make 2 sumps from it and get a BYAP growbed over the top. I am also considering getting an 4th IBC on the RHS of the fish tank, i Have the IBC waiting ot be picked up so will get it shortly.

Ok update time since somethign significant happened.

Got 25 advanced barra from GP yesterday, some real thumpers in that lot, I could eat a couple now I reckon lol. Got them from there rather than greenfingers cos greenfingers was $3 more exxy and they were not the same size, GPs smallest one I got was as big as their big ones and there is quite a size diff between the smallest and largest. Also grabbed a couple of marron to try out in the sumps.

WOW got home half an hour later torrential rain, i got soaked acclimitising the barra

Photos or it didnt happen roodog

How big do you think your barra are?

Not the best pics as its my phone n i was rushing





Funny things they turn slightly sideways to look at me, fed lightly this morning too

They look massive!

yeah they must be about 25cm up to maybe close to 40, some of them are quite thick across the back too

went to the seafood shop on sat morning, barra was $59 a kilo

ok update

Pulled my goldfish out of my sump the other day as one was looking a bit weird(think the maz may of hit it) and then the maz killed another one... so they are in a fish tank. The weird one came good by the next day so mayb eit was stressed or something??? Anyway was looking at them and I noticed the orange one had a couple of white spots on it... oh no im thinking ICH.

So I thought maybe it got it from the other fish in the tank... so salted it and was keeping an eye on my big system to see if anything showed signs there. Got my refractometer the other day so tested all my systems, the big system had 0 reading, so I chucked a couple handfuls in, my small system had .6ppt of salt, i thought it would be WAY higher(like 5ppt!) yes I did calibrate it etc.

Anyway yesterday I was looking at the barra and one came up for a look and I noticed he has white spots on him, so most likely ICH is in my big system.... ffffuuuuuu


So went to salt but I dont have enough salt left to raise it high enough so I cut off the tank for a couple hours so the water just circulated from the sump to the growbeds and used all the salt I had to give them a concentrated bath, will be getting more salt today to bring up the ppt to 5 or so( I read 3ppt and 6ppt so Im going to go for as close to 6 as I can get.)

Now im not sure if the barra I got from GP were the cause of the ich, I cant say they were the greatest looking fish I have seen(troutmans quality of his trout were superb for example as was greenfingers barra i got) they did have marks on their sides etc. Could of been the pygmy perch I got also but I gave them a pretty good looking over for symptoms and didnt use the water they come out of either.

Oh well these things happen, just annoying more then anything.

Sorry to hear mate, nothing more disappointing than infected fish.

Hope you get it under control

Yeah whacked about 6kg so far in there this arvo, had to got out so the rest is undissolved

Hope things have improved since these last posts.

How have the mussels worked out for you ?

I am thinking of doing the same for the same reasoning and would like to know your thoughts.

Cheers

Mussels cooked in the heat so i lost them all over a couple days. That experiment didnt work!!


Barra are fine and my little sustem is empty cos i want to expand the big one and need that space.

Pygmy perch seem happy as does the marron

Salt probably didn't help them either...

Do you know how warm your water got before they carked it ??