Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

just extra protein Jamie

Nice work on the fish food Jamie. You are powering ahead. BTW Jades and silvers apparently won't eat themselves to death, but Barra and goldfish are a couple of species that will given the opportunity, esp with pellets that swell in their bellies.

Our fish are still hungry all the time, but they are on a reduced diet for a bit. Most of our grow beds aren't online at the moment, but hopefully today we can get some work done (in between the puddles). I was overfeeding them for the system capacity and we had an ammonia spike (4000L water change later) now everything is good again.

It's hard not to feed them when they come up and beg at the side of the tank.. but you must be firm

$49.95 to $29.95 - great deal on that grinder Jamie!

just as well you don't have any water restrictions up your way at the moment LOL

most of the refill was straight rainwater, direct from the clouds

Dave - yes - grinder was a bargain. I like it - a mechanical contraption thats going to last a lifetime

After I fed the fish all that home made food they were all extremely fat!
Like 200 pregnant ladies with really extended stomachs. I mean it was very noticeable!

Thankfully the next day they had slimmed down. So I guess there would have been a "solids" spike

I suspect from what I saw that Jades also have no idea when to stop eating.
So any food that swells is not a good idea.

Week 6:
pH 7.2
Nitrates 5-10ppm
Fish 70-100mm

Some of the fish have whitish patches on the dorsal fin area. Don't know if thats a problem or just normal colour variation?
Doesn't look like the white spot I saw originally.

Harvested lots of lettuce leaves, about 1.5 kilo of beans.
Got about 50 grape sized tomatoes and a few baby cucumbers coming along.
Planted brocoli and eggplant.
Only failure so far has been capsicum. Plants don't look happy - brown edges on leaves. Maybe the phH is too alkali? Or maybe the tomatoes are taking too much of the nutes.

week 7:
pH 7.1
Nitrates 15+ppm

Still concerned about discoloration on fish dorsal fins - any ideas?

My lettuces seem to have really appreciated the rise in nutes. They have grown very strongly during the last week. Also several cucumbers growing
increasing in size 1cm a day. 100's of cherry toms. The beans are reaching their used-by date. Getting leaf wilt. - looks like some kind of virus at the base of the leaf stems.
Any aging or dead leaves/plants I feed to the fish.

Eggplant starting to grow.
Now have:
Beans, Celery, eggplant, lettuce, pok choy, Tomato, capsicum, italian parsely, thyme, silver beet, strawberry, basil and broccoli.

I need more growbeds!

Jamie, any chance of netting a fish that is affected and taking a pic?

Monya - I'll try but these little buggers move like streak lightening
It seems to be just the larger ones so I was wondering if it was just a natural development - reaching puberty or something

Wouldn't want to hazard a guess without a pic, try a scoop at feed time

Afternoon all, just been reading about the white spots. Sound very much like a fungal disease.

We have pond gold fish which we treated using an organic formula (sorry they call it natural antibacterial on the bottle).

Melafix by aquarium pharmaceuticals - made from Melaleuca extract.

It takes a little longer to see the results than if you were to use a conventional chemical antibacterial solution. It is recommended for use with a bio filter (wont kill off the bio's). Safe for acquatic plants, unsure what the reaction on the vegies would be.

I'm not sure if you can eat the fish after they have been treated with melafix. Someone else may know for sure