Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

seen one trout you have seen them all (if only that was true ) but I will go out and see if they will pose for a picture

I have been flat out working and have not had time to even throw some feed their way so it may have to wait until tomorrow. But I've not been too busy to update the forum

Ok, For you Faye, anything, well some photos at least

Here are the new babies. Spent the day smashing the food.




They aren't as big as last year which required a quick trip to BYAP for some 3mm pellets and some other essential supplies.

Returned with bags of Hydroton and 4 blue barrels

Whats the plan Marc? More GB's?

Good question Charlie.

I need to expand and the plan is to replace the 1000l trout tank with a 3000l tank, making a total water in the system of 7000l. I plan to do that before the next trout season (so I have 8 months to save up or maybe Father Christmas will be nice to me). Over the next 18 months i want to add 2 more grow beds. But in the mean time, inspired by Nat, I intend to add some blue barrels beds. Why blue barrels I hear you ask?

Well the Tomatoes grow so big. This is one tomato that I started in September. Even after the hammering from the hail on Friday you can see the size of it, even this late in the season. By the way I have had a huge amount of tomatoes off this plant.


This plant is taking up the whole grow bed. So I thought that I could plant things like tomatoes and rhubarb in half blue barrels and reclaim a grow bed for other things.

So off to BYAP I went to get 4 more barrels to go with the 2 I already have and 2 of the olive barrels.

By mid afternoon I had the makings of 2 barrel beds.


Now I just need to make the stands and plumb it in and I should be able to start planting some winter veg.

Between the rain and household chores I didn't get much of a chance to progress the blue barrels this weekend.
I did manage to cut all the barrels, buy all the plumbing and get the stands in place.
To start with I will have 2 stands with 3 barrels each. That should give me about 500l of growbed making my total growbed volume just under 3500l (I don't want to think about how much I have spent on Hydroton )
here is a photo of one stand of 3


The big question is do I paint them blue?

Thanks Nat for all your advice and inspiration

Killa tommie plant Marc

p.s. I think blue paint would be a wise choice...

Thanks Charlie. Do you want to drop by for a few beers and to give me a hand?

The tomato is not a good as it was before it was hit by hail about a week ago but it seems to be recovering (in time for winter ) Anyhow we got and are still getting more toms than we can eat. next year i will put a couple in the blue barrels and they can grow as big as they like and i can get a growbed back for some more veges

Great to see you are expanding Marc! That should help take care of those pesky nitrates

You are going to need it with all those trout

Update time. Despite spending a week in Adelaide I have managed to get the blue barrels on line.

I am real happy with the results and amazed at how many plants they take. I'm not amazed that I forgot that new hydroton floats , the guard around the stand pipe moves with the hydroton and that the 450mm barrels make these problems soo much worse than with grow beds .

A bit of fish safe silicone to make doubly sure the caps don't leak


And a close up of the drain plumbing.



and 3 of the barrels finished and planted

and some more pictures of the finished product.




The tomato plant is coming back with a vengeance after being battered by hail.



LOL I have had so little time over the last couple of weeks I was lucky to get this much done!! I'll tell you what, I'll put on a carton and you can bring the brushes!

Great system Marc

I don't think I'll be planting Tomato's in my growbed again either as they just take over. Guess I'll be joining you with some blue drums of my own down the track.

Good luck expanding your fish tank.

Muzza

Thanks Muz, plans for expansion coming soon.

Time will tell but I think the blue drums are an essential addition to any system that grows Tommies and rhubarb or any of the tree crops - One of the drums has a red pawpaw in it already!!

Legendary plumbing mate. Very neat. 2 mod points to you.

Love your work with the blue barrels Marc. Very neat Makes a lot of sense keeping tomatoes out the main grow bed. Out of interest what variety is your mega tomato?

Thanks Ben and Charlie


it's just a plain Roma. I've never grown a Roma this big; cherries yes, they are a weed but not the bigger toms. I can see a great tom season later this year.
The birds have got into them in a big way so I am probably going to have a heap coming up in the grow bed.