Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks Poolswimmer I am considering using some aircell insulation that I have here (basically aluminised bubble wrap) on the undersides of the lids of my FT and ST, and also around the GBs as things warm up. With the trout I haven't really needed to add much, if any, heat over the record warm winter here, so heat loss hasn't been an issue. I will need to be keeping heat out before too long though, as I want to keep the water temps as comfortable as possible for the fish as the weather warms up. I'll use the same aircell insulation around my GBs too I think, as a lot of the heat that is added to the system comes from the black polyethylene of the GB getting hot in the sun, and conducting that heat into the water. I may need to paint the sections that are exposed to direct sunlight for extended periods though (or even just paint those parts of the GB white instead), as UV does break it down, and I don't want loose bits of plastic in my system.

Yeah sounds like you have got it covered.

Thought it was a bit late in the winter to get it sorted. I will be interesting to see your results next winter though. see if there is marked improvement with or with out insulated cover.

The system water is warming up due to the weather with yesterday hitting 25C, the FT was 15.9C yesterday afternoon, and it has the trout eating like crazy- 105g yesterday and 115g today, 3mm pellets. The Nitrification bacteria are up to the task of dealing with the extra Ammonia, but the shell grit isn't quite keeping up, with its buffering action no longer able to keep the system at about pH 7.2. I could tip more shell grit in, but have decided to get some Potassium into the system as well as all the Calcium that has been released from the CaCO3. Late last week the water returning from the GBs dropped down to pH 6.96 (FT pH 7.12), so I added 50g of KOH. Yesterday I added another 10g of KOH and this morning the GB return water was down to pH 6.98, so I added another 12g of KOH. An hour and a half later the GB return was at pH 7.07 and the FT @ pH 7.14.
With the fish so crazy for their food and happy to eat from my hand, I thought I'd get a nice close up video of them doing so. Phone in left hand attempting to touch the video start button with my thumb as I released some food- water splashing everywhere all over my hands and phone, and when I tried to adjust my grip to be able to start recording... can you see where this is going? ...

Yes, it slipped straight out of my hand and sunk to the bottom, I did make a desperate attempt to grab it as it went down, but missed as I couldn't see it very well with all the splashing. I may have uttered the words "oh bother" or similar as it sank I went and grabbed the net, but couldn't see the phone (Motorola RAZR) on the bottom for a while due to the fish splashing around, but spotted it near the middle, in 1metre of water, on top of a pile of fish poo and shell grit.

It was still on, although the screen was doing crazy things and the flashlight was on (uses the LED camera flash), and it became progressively worse, with various bad things happening.

I decided that 1700ppm of salt was not going to do the electronics any good, so shook as much water out as I could after I removed the SIM card, then put the varius openings under the tap a couple of times to try to remove a bit more salt. Then into the food dryer for a while as the battery went flat, due to me not being able to turn it off. These phones are all one piece and you cant get them open to remove the battery, at least not without a big effort. After a while I sat it out in the sun for a while and then tried to give it a charge, but it thought the charger cord was a HDMI cable when I eventually got it to turn on again... it was very confused

Anyway, after various reboots and dead android screens, it seems to have regained its senses and I can make and receive calls and texts, wifi works, as does GPS

I don't know how long its going to last now, so more frequent backups are in order!

In other news, I finished building the short GB stand for the tomatoes and vines, the paint should be dry tomorrow, so I can get it in place and get my 3 tomato seedlings planted.

I've heard leaving the water affected electronic devices in a bag of rice. The rice will draw all the water out of your phone. Can't say that it will do anything in regards to the salt.......

Dual SLOs in action, aerating the water

A few pics taken this arvo-

Chard producing heaps for us and even more to sell at the market each week



Celery with a few strawberry runners (hard to see) along the near edge, put in there to hold them until I get the strawberry tower built. The edges of some of the leaves are brown, perhaps related to the salinity, currently at 1.56ppt, although my horticulturalist wife tells me too much water or fertiliser will do it too... Wheat in the background is aphid city, also garlic, spring onions and chard seedlings.


Ready for picking, we are only just keeping up with eating the caulis, steamed or as soup... I'm just about to reheat the leftover from last night for dinner

Have you tried making cauli mash? Steam the caulies, then add a little oil/butter, salt n pepper and purée. My hubby can't pick the difference and the kids prefer it to potato and get this, they sook at me if we have no cauli! Unfortunately all mine is bought cause it doesn't seem to want to grow in my AP.

That chard is amazing! When you sell it, do you pull the plants out or cut the leaves?

Wish we had a farmers market...

Where did all this growth come from, Guna?

It only feels like yesterday you got this system running. Wowsers!!

Yep, looking good Gordon...

I always cut the stems near the base, no point wasting a perfectly good established root system that's continually popping out new leaves! I'll give the mash a try too, thanks

I do pull the cauli's out by the roots though- the chooks love the leaves too, so nothing is wasted.



3.5 months ... Pee and a bit of worm juice early on, then fish poo, that's the secret

No signs of any Iron deficiency yet, I'm wondering if that is going to happen any time soon, since the chard must be removing some from the system, and many on the forum seem to need to add Iron chelate of some form. I am maintaining pH close to neutral though, which may help... if there is sufficient Fe in the fish food.

What is your source water? Some tap water has a lot of iron in it. Not mine though, I've been having to add iron to my systems regularly even through I've been running a pH of about 6.7 lately. I'm guessing the Aquamax fish feed I'm using isn't heavy on the iron either because I don't know anyone using it that says they don't need to add iron.

I found last cool season here that the Kale, collards, chard and celery were favorites at the market I've been selling through and those are all cut and continue growing crops as long as you can keep the pests at bay.

I'm actually going to build some 1' wide beds to make tending and harvesting easier for those cut and come again crops as well as for the vine crops.

Currently lettuce and chives are the only things I sell where I pull the whole plant when I sell it. Of course with the chives, it is more like diving the clumps and I keep a few to keep growing and dividing for the future.

My only water is rain collected from the house roof, so no Iron content there. It's around pH6.7 Maybe the Skretting food has enough Iron, I suspect it has blood and bone in it, although there is no mention of the actual contents on the bag, nor on their website, nor a nutritional analysis that I can find.

I've been on the lookout for some suitable long narrow troughs to use as GBs too, it does get a bit crowded on the 1m wide beds for the chard.

I'm actually cutting a roll of liner in half to make the 1' wide beds using the rail and liner technique I used to make the 1' wide troughs under my towers.

I've dropped the salinity down a bit more, and also syphoned out all the fish poo that hasn't been SLO'd into the ST and pumped into the GBs, although its amazing how much the trout have produced in the past few days.
As previously mentioned the pH is on the way down with the extra feeding, 95-115g each day this week. I added 10g KOH on 12/8, 12g on 13/8 and then left it for a few days, and pH in the FT was down to pH 6.94 this morning, and GB return at pH 5.85, so I'm in the process of adding 35g of KOH (50% solution, very slippery on the hands!) over a couple of hours right now. I'm going to add another kilogram of shell grit to the GBs today as well, as a little of that was syphoned into the paddock with the fish poo.



The new sump pump does pump a bit more- I'll do some timings soon, but uses a bit more than twice the energy, despite the 0.1kW claim in the specs. It actually draws 260W from my system (including inverter efficiency factor of about 85% for low loads, vs the PondMax @ 125W, which is what the specs say. The new pump does have a low water level tilt switch as protection against dry pumping, which is a bonus. This can really only happen if I don't keep up with evaporative losses, as I think the plumbing is pretty failsafe- water always drains back to the sump.
Here is how they are connected in the sump- each has a 40mm 1-way valve to prevent the other pump's output going back through, required since they are not positive displacement pumps. 1 outlet supplies 3GBs and the other 5, including #8, which I'll have connected today.



Pump sitting on the new stand for GB#8, which will have pumpkins and melons on the far side, where the vines can run down the slope and 3 different tomatoes on this side, although with some severe frosts forecast in a few days time, I wont plant anything just yet. I plan to put a shade cloth bag on a frame over the tomatoes to keep pests (mainly Qld Fruit Fly and caterpillars) at bay, and hand pollinate.

Sometime soon, when I get the electrics installed, I plan to run both pumps alternately, so that if one fails the other is still doing sufficient pumping to keep the system ticking over with no risk to the fish. This counters failures of pump or electrics, as each will be independently powered from a different set of batteries and timers, and doesn't require a float switch or other method to detect failure of one pump. I'll probably generally run the PondMax more at night, due to its greater efficiency and lower energy use.