Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

oh come on Charlie I'm just not feeling the love

It was Charlie the vet Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery and a Bachelor of Science

Good pick up Charlie, sad for the loss but some great info.

Marc's right Charlie, your plants are awesome.......great work. Bugga about your trout, hope you haven't lost any more

I'm sorry to hear about your trout losses, too, Charlie. I thought trout were strictly carnivorous, but perhaps not so strictly after all.

Maybe they mistook the roots for worms...

Is there parts of the cabbage that may be poisonous to animals? I fed AP cabbage to the wife's bunny rabbit roots and all and it wound up dead the next day. I brushed it of as coinedence but maybe there is something to it?

Ha ha, I never would have worked that one out lol



Thanks for concerns peeps. No more losses yesterday or today so far and the rest have been hitting the food all the way through this episode so its got me buggered. Noticed one had these roots hanging out of its butt yesterday but I cant see him this morning so must have pooped it out. So weird.



Ive got another problem to deal with this morning, the media guard has come adrift in the bio filter bucket in the aquarium set up and a heap of K1 has ended up in the fish tank. lol

Cant win a trick lately.

Unintentional moving bed filter...

Maybe Monsanto has snuck a new type of frankenseed into our lives. They already have pesticide producing plants, perhaps it is the new vermin proof cabbage...

Just a few pics..

Pea's seem to be doing nicely in the DWC.

I haven't checked out your system before Charlie (a major oversight on my part considering your high standing here) and I'm stoked to see someone using concrete formwork. Should be plenty strong enough for FT and GBs and nicely priced too. Guessing a liner or epoxy sealant would be the go long term tho?
I've seen my share of construction sites and I'm glad to see it works nicely. :-)
Love BYAP for it's inspirational value.

now to trawl through 64 pages to check out your system properly...

Okay Charlie, Mr. High Standing with Metrosexual hands and interesting feet, riddle me this Einstein:
What would you say are the pros and cons of the DWC bed vs. the standard GB with media? Is one better than the other or is one better for certain plants than others? As you're running both I feel you might have some insights for us.

Would love to hear your opinion on that.

Regards, Martin.

The orange paint on the timber bed tricked me. I thought it was made from concrete formply and laminated veneer lumber (LVL).
Nice work though, and along the same lines. Formply is pretty resilient and weather resistant if anyone is tempted to imitate the build btw. Can be had cheaply 2nd hand sometimes, some concrete attached. :-)

Thanks Bodgy (love the name), yea the timber was reasonably priced and nice to work with. I tried avoiding using a liner to begin with because I liked the idea of sealing with an epoxy sealer but be buggered if I could find any locally. Actually, the closest I could find was in the UK so I gave up and went with the liner. It was tricky gettimng it neat but I think it will last for a long time.
64 pages isnt too bad, it was longer but I split my old system and this one to make two threads lol








hahahha, nice opening sentence ya cheeky bugger
Those hands and feet have got solid career ahead thank you very much.

As to your questions my findings so far are..
I suppose pro's for the DWC so far would be that you can move the plants around by simply lifting the net cup out and putting it in another position (for better sun exposure etc). If I need to get into the water body I can just simply lift the rafts and plants off and sit them on the grass whilst I clean it etc. Planting and harvesting is very quick and easy. I can get a bit heavier with folier treatments if need be because I can control run off. It all keeps a lot neater and organised. Ill never have to worry about solid build up or anaerobic zones. And lastly, its nice on the eyes.

DWC cons would be mostly plant related. Because of the raft sheeting I chose (quite thin) the heavier plants fall over so I am limited to plant choice without support framing. I have found that some plants dont like it. Some plants (like tomatoes) may have too large a root zone for this short bed. Sometimes the roots get so tangled that you can cause a bit of damage when harvesting so you need to be cautious. It cost more. The worst thing about the DWC though, is the filter drums... its an annoying maintenance task that needs to be done regularly (something people dont think about when talking about introducing solids removal), If I was to do it again I would design the filtration differently because it bugs me to no end.

To sum it up, my opinion is I like both methods of media beds and DWC. I think for an all round system its good to have both but if I was to choose between the two (in a backyard situation) I would go the media beds hands down.

Sorry about the cheeky bugger part but I couldn't help it.

Thanks for the feedback of DWC vs. media bed. I didn't expect the last sentence but that is good to hear. I reckon that if someone had to build an AP template it would be to build a standard CHOP2 system (or whichever system design suits you best) and then add media beds later for some diversity. I think that makes sense.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

Regards, Martin.

Oh God No.....