Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

They may be limited by statute... but, again, since we do a closed system, I don't see the issue.

If some bureaucrat really thinks a tilapia can make its way out of our system, and down the block into the street drain... I have had flash floods carry little minnows up to my door step from streams and ponds on the way down., but they were in existing water ways that flooded. My back yard is not an 'existing waterway' even when it floods.

I got to work in the greenhouse today!!!

First I did this:
The weather was actually warm enough to have the doors open at both ends. I haven't been using this door much, because it's at the end where the greenhouse runs into the slope of the yard, and I've never gotten around to digging it out so it would open more than a foot. I still didn't dig it out all the way, because I had other priorities. But at least it's somewhat usable now.

Then for the rest of the day I did this:

This is the second grow bed stand, and will hold two more grow beds. It took a while to get it level, and in the process I discovered at least 17 different ways to smash and/or slice my fingers, but I didn't write them down for posterity, because my fingers were too sore, and also because I need to get at least one more grow bed finished this weekend so I can get the rest of the gravel out of my truck, so I needed to keep moving.

I left a gap between this stand and the first one, because I still have a third sump tank to bury. Once I've done that, I'll put the fifth grow bed in that gap.

I need another IBC. Tangent, hurry up and come home from Yuma. You should go with me to get my last IBC and meet Professor Irwin Corey*. Unless you don't like quirky people as much as I do. Even so, you could still go if you want, just to salivate over his massive collection of containers.



* He's not really Professor Irwin Corey. The real one is probably dead by now, or else very, very old**. Here's a clip of him:




** It turns out he's just very, very old. 98 or so. And still doing his Professor thing, as of a few years ago!

Here are some shots of the system that I took during work breaks:






The rose isn't going to go in the system. It's been propped up on top of the aquarium system for the past week, but is growing so fast I carried it out to the greenhouse today and propped it there instead, while I figure out where I'm going to plant it.

The aloe vera is a new addition. I have some doubts about whether it will really like being an aquaponic plant, but there's only one way to know for sure, so I stuck it in to see.

We have aloe vera in a pot that I rigged to get watered when our ground growing strawberries get watered. It went all curly and sick looking through over watering. I think it might be a dessert plant. It looks like it.

It will be interesting to see how it goes.

And this...

Did you know it costs $9.60 to insure a parcel worth $3 with Australia Post? Who would take that option? Who, other than me, would even check that on their web site? Why would they even have that option?

The world has gone nuts.

Is that a rose? Are you going to try growing a rose in aquaponics? I hope so

I wasn't planning to, since they basically grow like weeds when you stick them in the ground up here, so it didn't seem necessary...but now that you've suggested it...it occurs to me I could get one of the mini ones to stick in my aquarium system. I bet it would do great, based on how well the one in the photo is doing after just being propped on the aquarium for a few days.

I might pull out the aloe vera, since yours didn't do well. My logical self kept saying it wouldn't like it, and I didn't listen.

According to wikipedia, it probably originated in Northern Africa.

It seems there are no natural occurring lumps of it growing anywhere.

Which I guess qualifies as having an interesting symbiotic relationship with humans. .

How can they know that? I'm sure there are huge stretches of anywhere where no one has ever done systematic aloe vera searches.

And speaking of symbiosis, did you know there's a parasite (okay, not the same thing; so call me tangential!) that eats the tongue of a fish and then acts as a prosthetic tongue? Actually, come to think of it, that is sort of symbiotic, once you get past the tongue-eating part.

It definitely qualifies as the creepiest thing I've learned all week.

Here's the link so you can be creeped out too: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/28/tongue-eating-fish-parasites-never-cease-to-amaze/

Nice.

I see your fish tongue and raise you an Emerald cockroach wasp.

This beasty remote controls a cockroach by first stinging up a temporary paralysis of the roach with a shot to a bunch of nerves.

Then stings a second time directly into the roach's brain taking out the bit that controls the escape reflex, and making the roach groom itself a lot (fussy wasp)

So just when you think roach lobotomy is taking things too far, the wasp then trims the zombie roach's antennae a bit so as to steer it around like a horse until it gets bored and lays an egg in it.

The egg eats the host from the inside out.

Repeat.



It must be difficult getting anyone to believe you when you discover things like this wasp, or the fish tongue bug.

.

Wow. That's a hard one to top.

*think*...*think*...*think*...

Oh, how about this: (only a little bit tangential...I think) Did you know the guy who invented the lobotomy got a Nobel Prize for it?

Seriously.

You're right. It's a screwed up world.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me.. than a frontal lobotomy....

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I am developing an extreme hatred of scoria.


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Today I saw a doctor's note that said, "The patient has undiagnosed diabetes mellitus."

This hurts my brain.

If the doctor knows he has it, then it's not undiagnosed. If it's undiagnosed, then the doctor can't know he has it.

Do they not teach logic in medical school?


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No, they teach how to push drugs.

Your just showing off because you can actually decipher doctor handwriting.