Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Monya, Doug - I buy the food from SEQ hatcheries - $5 a kilo

Ell - sounds like a plan! I just bought 5 kilos so I'm good for now.
When will you be ready for some food? What quantities are you buying in?

I just read the BSF thread - fantastic work Gary! All those fat juicy maggots.
I am amazed at the size and numbers.

I haven't got a compost heap as such, but my neighbour is always giving me cabbages from Rocklea markets where he works.
If I let them rot down in a plastic container - with a ramp going into my fish pool - is that a suitable environment for BSF?
Or are they more into meat scraps?

Jamie,
BSF are into everything, but don't need meat scraps - just normal veggie scraps so your Rocklea source would be ideal. (I am looking at a source along those line also).

Fish pellets - I only got my 25 SP in mid Nov and 5kg of food then, still have ~2kg left so in no hurry as yet. When getting low will see who is interested in sharing a bag(s) or if anyone is getting low, raise your hand

Week 9
pH 6.62
Nitrates 15ppm
Fish 8-13cm

PH is slowly drifting acid. Will add some more dolomite later.
First eggplant fruit is about 2cm big. One planted in soil is 4cm. So maybe eggplant don't like wet feet.
Lots of ladybird beetles chewing on cucumber leaves. I sprayed them carefully with pyrethrum - an "organic" pesticide made from pyrethrum daisies - however the label says cover fish tanks before use.
Some cherry tomatoes are ripening - very tasty toms.
More cucumbers nearly big enough to pick. Second crops of beans and lettuce getting started.

The fish eat just about anything from chook pellets to slices of bread (big fights over that) - they even have a go at tough cabbage leaves.

Got a big plastic box on a rack over the pool full of cabbage leaves that are slowly rotting down. I am waiting for signs of the mythical BSF!
Then i"ll make an incline they can climb to fall into the water

Cheers
Jamie

I wouldn't be inclined to use pyrethrum Jamie. Eggplant do not like wet feed - but persist as amazing things happen in AP sometimes.

Rather than using dolomite - think about using calcium carbonate powder CaCO3. I bought mine at a produce shop for not much more than $1 a kilo and it has had excellent results. If you have not already seen my results with this - the discussion is on my system thread.

Eggplant in my system have gone crazy ATM, planted seedlings only 4 weeks ago and they have just started flowering.

As with the rest of you, I've always thought they liked slightly dryer conditions..

I've got an eggy in my sysem, it was strugling BAD in the no-dig due to lack of water..........but percked up nicely in the AP its really a tiny plant, but has 7 fruits on it.

i'm more and more believing that in plant talk dryer means more O2..........would explain why stuff like eggy does ok.

Jamie, IF you are going to use pyrethrum, I would advise putting some plastic in and around the plant to cover the gravel/medium and thus reduce the chance of any drops falling down into the GB and sucked into the tank.

EB put up a topic where he went to a place that used pyrethrum and it killed his goldies, he then switched to artificial "P" which was ok, I did try googling for it once

Here it is

Dad and I ran eggplant experiments last year in our dirt gardens. We've never done well with them, but love the things. We tried purchased seedlings and home grown seedlings at three different garden locations. Two out of the three plots dried up and died. The one that made eggplants like we have never seen before had very good drainage and automatic watering every day. We were very suprised.

Janet, I have had good luck with egg plants some years and bad other years. They are fussy, but I like them. So I try every year. I would assume the weather is the cause. I try not to have to water very often because it stresses my well pump. So I probably have good luck on the years the rain is enough with occassional watering.

I am really looking forward to trying AP for Egg Plant.

Cool, so it sounds like they like to be kept MOIST AND with HIGH root DO....(good drainage) Thanx for that JP

VB - I used the pyrethrum very sparingly and its done the job without damage, but I won't use it again. But the dolomite is good stuff - I've been using it without hassles and I have a big bag of it

I think maybe we need to put together a list of suitable pesticides?
Whose an expert on the subject

Ell - I checked out your link to EBs site - the one with the comments about artificial pyrethrum. EB - those are impressive photos
The eggplant is doing ok - lots of growth - but not quite as good as the soil one. I guess the sub-gravel climate is different for each of us.
I used 20mm gravel - a pretty uniform-sized gravel at that - with a flood cycle of 8 minutes. I guess those 2 parameters will determine the level of DO.

As I've said previously the only thing not doing well in my beds is capsicum - which is a disappointment. I have seen other peoples photos with nice capsicum growing - I think on your video EB and maybe on Monyas beds (?).
What could be going wrong with the capsicum? I thought it was closely related to tomatoes and they are going berserk. Though they apparantly like it a bit more acid.

Eggplant is great - salted and fried with sun dried tomato.

nice roasted and pickled too, with lots of oil.

Yummy
I'm just about to sit down to some nice fresh pasta with basil, cherry toms and cucumber from the garden, a bottle of red and a fresh loaf of sour-dough bread I am baking.
A mate gave me some of the culture last week and I'm hooked. Tastes much better than the garbage from the shops. Hot from the oven with butter melted in. And its so easy to make. Just like Kefir.

Just finished a pasta made from AP toms and AP basil pesto. Deeeelicious.

Jamie, is your problem with capsicums the fruit not setting or general substandard plant?

Just polished off 2 home layed eggs, fried up on some AP tommies, covered with AP basil and dirt (concrete actually) parsley. Had i acess so some of that sour dough culture i'd have had a completely home grown lunch!