Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

True TCL.... if heat is going to be an issue... then most certainly don't use round stormwater pipes.. that are continuously exposing large surface area to the low flow of the water.. use proper low profile NFT channels...

Keep the lengths short.. 3-6 mtr.... and minimise your number of channels...

And increase the flow rate if required.... you'll have to anyway... because transpiration will just suck the water from the plants...

If the heat is that severe... that it's heating the water to 90-100F... for extended periods of time...

Then you'll probably have to shade the NFT/grow beds.. or even raft areas anyway... just for transpiration issues...

Heat gain is an issue with NFT... especially in newly planted channels... just as it is in newly planted gravel grow beds (particularly)....

And certainly can be an issue with 10 channel, 12mtr hydro tables... but it's manageable...

I would never use round stormwater pipes for NFT... unless basically filled with water at a relatively high flow rate... more like a shallow DWC system...

But if that's the case... then you might just as well... build a DWC raft system anyway...

300 mm DWC is pretty standard.

TCLynx, thanks for info.

Bloody hot here today, tried to get up early to get some concreting done for the dwc GB, but I got a call out and had to work until 11.30 and now it's too warm for hard work. I'll still try to get another shade sail up to avoid the morning sun burning the young plants.

When I transplant, I try to do it either really early in the morning or in the evening so I'm not putting traumatized plants out during the extreme heat/sun. I do have Aluminet 40% up over the tower/raft system which helps a little bit but it is still just too hot for good lettuce production here this time of year. I can only get really tiny heads of lettuce this time of year.

Often when I transplant lettuce seedlings into rafts, I will actually dip the trays and then place the plants into the rafts but then keep the rafts in the barn under the roof until late afternoon/early evening before placing the rafts out into the system so that the seedlings get all afternoon and then all night till the next morning before being exposed to extreme sun.

If direct seeding into media the plants are often a bit heartier, especially if being grown during the appropriate season. It is the transplants that get traumatized that need the most babying.

Thanks for the info, TCLynx, i will have to create a list of plants which are better suited for the hot season (and which i like). Some of the lettuce started to bolt and the leafs turned thick and bitter. But one half of the problem is that the plants were growing very slow after starting the system.

I have ammonia and nitrites sitting on 0 - 0.1ppm since over a week which hopefully means the system is fully cycled as i feeding more and more every day to the hungry beasts. The water temperature stays around 29 degrees +/- 1 degree celsius all day.

I got most of the material here for the DWC extension but it is a little on the back burner because with the wet season coming i want to finish the generator setup (have to put a small concrete slab down and build a roof for it) and i just ordered a deluxe chook shed (after i was not happy with the timber one which i started to build / the rising humidity was warping the sheets) with the dimensions 1.5m by 1.5m and 1.8m high. Never had chickens but i thought i have to do something with produce leftovers which are not suitable for consumption and my missus wants some pet bunnies, they can look after the salad leafs which are not crunchy enough (for me it would be rather proper rabbits which serve another use when they are grown up ).

The red claws were not very happy with the food i offered them (pellets and greens) so first they killed 3 cherabins which shared the tank with them and then one red claw killed the other... The only supplier so far wants me to take a whole pallet of red claw / prawn feed for the one leftover creature, i hope he will survive on the food i give him until i find a solution. The cherabins love the barramundi pellets and munch away on the greens. One of the two small ones which are still in the inside aquarium lost one of his claws during transport but after he went into molt he grew a new one... fully functional... amazing creatures and so nice to watch... should make a video clip during feeding time... They stuff themselves with half crumbled 3mm barra pellets and they are only size of a thumb or so...

Cheers

Our hot rainy season tends to smash a lot of the lettuce. I do still manage to grow lettuce through the summer but it is limited and most varieties I don't even bother with and the heads have to be harvested small. Sometimes you can harvest and immediately soak the lettuce in cold water to reduce some of the bitterness but if the lettuce has started to bolt or taken on that dusty dull look while getting long, yea, need some chook to feed it to I guess.

I'm actually working on building more media beds (these will only be 1' wide but long) so come the cool season I will have a better place to be growing the Kale, collars, celery, chard, snow peas and other longer term crops that it helps to be able to access both sides of the plant for easy harvesting, tending, spraying and whatever. So far I'm not able to sell as much Lettuce as I can harvest from the raft beds I have and I personally haven't had much success growing anything other than lettuce in the raft beds (I probably could but since everything else seems to grow so much better/easier in media I figure why bother trying to make it work in rafts.) Well the celery grew great in the rafts but the plants destroyed the rafts and net pots they grew so well. Easier to do continual harvest from media beds and since the plants were so aggressive in the rafts it wasn't like I could harvest living celery plants from the rafts to sell.

Is that because of the bulb root? I was just looking into th possibility of growing the variety celeriac in ap because it is nearly impossible to buy it here in the shops. Once I got some for free because the fresh produce market tried to throw it away as they were just interested in the stalks (wrong type) and another time when I was not looking for it... But it is an essential for soups and stock, very common in Germany (where I come from).

Any experience with red oakleaf? I planted some at the start (8 weeks ago) and it is still tiny but looks very healthy while everything else took off in this GB.

I was growing a stalk type cutting celery, the crown just got so big and the root mass so big that it was totally wedged and couldn't be easily removed from the raft without cutting.

I expect the Celeriac would grow just fine in a media bed, should be places you can order seeds or plants online if you can't find it locally. I've never grown it myself. I was actually slow to try growing celery because I've thought I was allergic to it for the past decade. Now I'm guessing I must just be allergic to some chemical the commercial stuff is grown with that doesn't simply wash off because I don't have the allergic reaction when I eat the celery I grow but I break out in hives if I eat a stick of celery from the grocery store.

Not sure about the red oakleaf. I've grown a few different varieties but lettuces are SO variable and results can often be dependent on the very specific seed lot and variety and age of seed more than the general type. I have noticed that the dark red oakleaf and red butter lettuce I've grown are more prone to bolting while still at a small size in my systems compared to some of the other varieties but the local conditions are also going to be suited to different varieties. (water temp, day temp, night temp, light levels, humidity, nutrient levels and different nutrient mix/balance.) Try different things to see what works for you, and try to take notes and keep track since if a certain seed lot or seed supplier has really poor germination for you or doesn't grow well or you don't like it, you won't want to buy that one again.

G'Day all

I added some more shade sails today, looks nearly like a greenhouse... And I hooked up a 12v 95ah agm battery to the DC circuit for the aerator as well as placed the generator in his new home (ibc cage placed in concrete with the openings sideways to get the unit out for refueling, with a temp tarp over it to protect it from early rain.)

And I placed a big order with greenharvest for lots of seeds of more heat resistant plants. I also tried some mixed lettuce seedlings again and will try to harvest them early this time to avoid bolting. We also planted some red Russian kale... It took me a long time to identify the plant, it's actually something I grew up with 20 years ago, but it is more a cold weather food, so we have to turn the a/c to freeze mode to enjoy properly... it is funny that now everybody (or better every cook show) talks about it and make it kind of modern... :-)

Our dwarf orange in a half blue drum started new shoots, looks happy. I had to fight off a couple of crusader beetle off the dirt garden orange tree. The smell weird when attacked, but could be worse... Luckily they are not skunks.

Today's selection...

GP145 Poultry Care Kit
TB104 Banana Bags
SC376 Chilli Anaheim
SC175 Celery Tall Utah Organic
SC191 Celeriac Caesar Organic
TA123 Poultry Feeder and Waterer
TS102 Natrakelp for Animals (1L)
ST167 Tomato Tropic
ST190 Tomato Thai Pink Egg
ST199 Tomato Cherry Yellow Honeybee
ST225 Tomato Cherry Yellow Pear
ST201 Tomato Cherry Red Pear
SB113 Bean Climbing-Winged
SO154 Onion Ishikura Winter Long
SM134 Mibuna Organic
SC384 Capsicum Perennial

Here comes a small update, did some concreting again for a system extension.

Lots of cherry tomatoes are changing color :-) , some of the new seedlings have some tiny white flies on them and start dying tried the garlic/chilli and a tomato leaf spray with no effect, have to find out what culprit it is.

We got a box of compost worms today and while I was playing with the concrete, my missus was trying to separate the worms from the compost... Fun fun fun...

And the whirly bird is installed but I need some cold air inlets in the floor. Water is cycling between 30 degrees in the night and 32 degrees in the afternoon.

What is the Max before I have lots of slow cooked barramundi?

huge harvest today. .. lol. .. accompanied by a hand full of cherry tomatoes which didn't make it into the kitchen. ..

Awesome system Oliver and great thread. very entertaining read.

Thank you very much, finfarm.

Hi Gwydion,

for your blue barrels, have you set them up as flood and drain? Do you do this with a siphon or timer on your pump?