Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Dave,



Interesting how people "discover things" that have been know for ages

Interestingly enough there is a senate document from the USA dated circa 1960's that warn of the dire problems to come from trace element depeltion in farming soils. If any one is interested i'll find it and post it '

We are now reaping the health issues due to lack of trace elements in our diet, and once the medical establishment has exhausted its "treat the symptop not the cause" mentality i'm sure some-one will "discover" the trace elemt connection again and be patted on the back

Thats why IMO crushed sea shells are the go, the ocean is THE repository for trace elements, and sice our system slowly turn acidic then calcuim carbonate from sea shells is the logical choice.

will have to mix in some serious sea shells and baked egg shells into my next growbed!... just got to get to the beach first... sounds like an outing comming up this week some time!

AM, this will feature heaviliy into my compete setup when my greenhouse is complete.

I have trialed the concept in my aquariums, and it works, however in my system i may have them in a seperate container with water flowing through them so i have the option of regulating water flow incase the PH rises too high. CaCo3 buffers to around the 8.5 mark, so you wouldn't want to add too much and then have the PH rise to this level

Composting worms.

For those of you who missed it last time around - here is a worm farm made from an old wheelie bin.

www.communisat.com/johnnie/WBWF.doc

my yabby likes them...

Fruit-fly trap.

Cut the top off a 2L PET bottle ( a plastic coke bottle) to make a funnel.

Unscrew the cap and remove it.

Place the funnel back into the bottle facing the wrong way around so that the neck of the bottle is inside the trap.

Tape it together with packing tape.

Add some rotting fruit.

Hang it somewhere outside.

Flies can get in but find it difficult to get out.

Empty the captured contents into your pond regularly.

That's how I catch fish!

Don't even need bait just put it in a shallow stream in Spring. I caught a 15 cm fish in a 1.25 litre lemonade bottle first time I tried. Freaked me out! Six fry at same time. Never got one that big again. Put it back in to spawn was taking whitebait to raise on. Got to be careful with fish laws here too. Still got them except for the jumpers. 15 whitebait = half a whitebait fritter. Have to have tops for their tank. Jumpers, Climbers, Carnivores. Need flies...

Nice tip for the flies.

I'm hoping that barra will eat silk worms. These are just 2 mulberry leaves of the stock of around 20 or so leaves that look like this And there's still more hatching every day

Blech! Those are gross!

I tried attracting black soldier fly larvgae to my compost bin late this Summer by putting out a bunch of fruit. I don't see any, and I think if they had hatched they were probably eaten up by the many crickets crawling on the pile.

They look a bit black and gross now, but you should see them in a week or so! Photos to come!

Really GOOD aquariums sell them (and mulberry leaves) for fish food.

Arrgg, now you have me itching all over, no more worm pictures. LOL

when my trees are big enough I will call on ya for some... they bring back memories as a kid rearing them as pets

just say the word AM, you will get a piece of cardboard with hundreds of eggs on it keep it in the fridge until the tree leafs up next year and you're away!