Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok I see. We bought a different breed and raised them for eating as well. Some great big ones that they use for broilers in the market. We let them get a bit too old and they sure got big. We had some get abit over 3 months that were 12 lbs or so. Good eating though.

Your Rhode Island Red is one of the best utility birds going, great to eat and lays lots of eggs.

They were Cornish Cross chickens. They did not lay many eggs but they did make big chickens.

Thanks donone.

Unfortunately although I have started keeping multi purpose chooks we won't be eating them any time soon (we only have 3 hens and the kids would get upset and mrs would kill me!) As we are in suburbia we can't have a rooster and don't have the space for a large flock. The grand plan is to move somewhere with more space to breed chickens and eat the ones that don't lay eggs.

We had a 6 hour blackout on Saturday. Luckily the backup system kicked in perfectly and worked for the whole time. Also lucky I was not working that day and was able to bucket some water into the growbed for the plants. It was about 35 degrees so they would have suffered. It's the first time in about 8 months we have had a blackout since I've had my system. I found out later it was caused by someone hitting a powerpole nearby on bussel hwy.

Close call bender, glad to hear all is ok.

Good stuff mate.

I remember reading a thread where the power was out for an extended period (30 odd hours comes to mind) and they had to bucket water into the grow beds every hour to try and clean the water and oxygenate it. Makes all the dollars on back up air seem well spent IMO.

Expansion time. Finally made it to the big smoke last Friday and caught up with Nat and purchased a new grow bed. Cheers Nat Finished installing it today.

Had to do some minor paving (glad I dont do it for a living or I'd be broke) before I started to level the ground. Then put the growbed in place but found the drain pipe was going uphill back to the tank so had to raise the growbed on blocks slighly. Also replaced the flexible hose I was using on the original growbed with PVC to both growbeds. Once again glad I'm not a plummer as I would be broke But its all running smoothly so now I am offically not over stocked anymore. Just have to plant up the new bed tomorrow.

A few pics of some of the veges -

more pics...

Got a nice supply of cucumbers happening at the moment. Will put in some more silver beet, beetroot, tomatoes, lettuce and whatever other seeds I find tomorrow

Looks great Ben,

I have the same system as you (2 gb's) that has been running faultlessly for over 3 years.

You tank cover is great, ill have to knock one up I think.

Will

Sensational looking tommies Bender!

Can I recommend you pick of a couple of cucumbers early, pickle em and wack that in a creamy dip? Tasty, tasty stuff....

Well it's almost been a year since I updated this thread so it's well over due. System is ticking along nicely with excellent vege growth and the silver perch growing nicely in the warm weather. I started with 40 SP and now have 37. The three that died were very small and looked like they weren't getting enough food. This was in the middle of winter though so they weren't eating much anyway. Some of the perch are growing much faster than others and will be ready for the plate by the end of summer.

Here is the system now


I have also installed a second courtyard system with one growbed. The growbed came from my uncle rick's system which he is decommissioning. See ricks six bed system thread.

Here is my second system

Currently have 11 silver perch out the first tank and 3 sacrificial goldfish that I've had for a year or so since I harvested the first lot of trout. The idea behind the second system is so I can continue to grow SP in one tank and seasonal fish like trout or barra in the other

Nice work. So where are you putting the other 5 beds:mrgreen:

Haha cheers Nat. I have room for one more growbed then I'm out of ideas Might have to move to a bigger block

Indoor system in the lounge room sounds good