Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That beef jerky looks great Muz, I think your recipe 2 would bring back memories of that old Johnny Cash song

Got on it last night at a mates place and all the recipe 2 jerky that I'd saved for home got scoffed. Definitely a winner I reckon

A pH of 6.4 isn't really time to panic as long as it didn't fall to that level FAST. You really just don't want it going below 6.0 unless you have a way to monitor the pH if it is lower than that since you need to keep it stable if you try to run a really low pH because if it suddenly totally crashes out the bottom and the ammonia spikes up it is bad for the bacteria and fish.
It is the ammonia level you need to keep a close eye on since that is the indicator that your system might be pushing limits or that something might need un-clogging.

Cheers TCLynx, Got home yesterday to find my plants cranking. Its amazing how much growth you get in two weeks. Chards have gone stupid, as has the parsley.

PH down to 6.4 again. Got the misses to add a coffee mug of lime twice while away and I added another last night. Ammonia at 0.25ppm and Nitrates at 2ppm. The misses did reduce the Trout feeds last week as she suspected they weren't eating their pellets as she told me there was some floating in the brush filter. Turned out to be fish poo, better to be safe than sorry though. Water temp was at 16deg and we had another 86mm of rain while away.

Cryovak has arrived so I'll be using that in the coming week.

Beef jerky recipe 2 won the comp.

Found a smoke trout jerky recipe.....might have to try that also

Been up since 1am, (climatising from nights shift), waiting for the sun to come up so I can go outside and do some work







Cheers Muzza

Lookin green and healthy, Muz. Beets coming along nicely.

Muzza brilliant looking system mate, it's hard to imagine running a 15000L system compared to my 150L system but your setup looks simple and effective, and i'm looking forward to upgrading! definitely subing this thread.

Few questions... Have you got an idea on how much you spent on capital for this project and what your average running costs are?

Secondly, do you combine fish species in tanks together or are they separated?

Thirdly, how much maintenance is required for a setup like this?

And finally, in terms of how much produce comes out, from both plants and fish do you find that you have just enough food, excessive food or not enough to support your family?

Cheers, great system keep it up!!

Dave

Wow, that is some system! Nice

Hey Noddy, How much have I spent on my system????? good question. I already had the tank and brush filter trough, swapped some finches for the bio filter tank. And bought the rest.

Growbeds x 5 $650ea...$3250
Pumps, 400w Grundfos $400ea. Have a spare one also just in case, bought of gumtree 2nd hand
Air Pumps x 2 $200ea ...$400
Back up air compressor $150, 105a/h battery $220.....$370
air diffusers x 6 $30ea....$180
Brushes $700
K1 media 200L $640
Fish feeders x 2 $380ea.....$760
pipe work and valves, only guessing but heaps $1000?

Total $7700...Bugger

The filters are in a garden shed I already had but I built the fish shed. I guess you could include another $2K there. So close to $10,000 I guess. But everything has been done in stages. Evolved so to speak and the costs have been a little here and there.

Running costs are about $3 a day.

Getting most of our veggies out of the system. Last month we only bought cucumbers, tomatoes and capsicums. And they will all be getting planted soon. Plus we give heaps of veggies away.

Sorry if a bit rushed, got to take kids to school.

Cheers Muzza

Wow thats a lot!

I thought I would share my costs chart that I'm figuring out atm.

This is for a 2or3 IBC system with recycled material
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... IdkE#gid=0

Cheers muz,

$10,000 is about what I would expect/budget for that size system. I'm sure that has paid for it's self a few times over, especially for the fish!

Does that $3 a day include fish food?

$3 is power costs only. At the moment I'm feeding about 1.2kg a day of fish food so that's another $3. I've often thought about tracking costs, both building and running but never quiet get around to it. I have bought a smaller wattage pump to try but requires changing the pipework so as to be less restrictive. This will reduce my power consumption by half if successful.

Got plans for a row of drums / pots under a trellis, a large wicking bed with constant flow from the aquaponics and two more growbeds down the track. I think then I'll have all of our veggie needs covered with heaps of spare to trade, sell, give away.

So I'm of to Perth tomorrow to buy 12 190L Olive drums for the trellis row.

As every body tells you on here it becomes an obsession, a very healthy, relaxing one mind you..

Thanks for the cost information Muzza. It's always interesting to see how much it costs and how much work it is. I do think that often the cost savings part is left out. If you're getting your veggies out of the system and some of the family meat (fish) requirements, do you have an idea of how much savings you're getting?

Also people often leave out the cost saving of not eating food that contains poisons.

Regards, Martin.

Thanks for the cost information Muzza. It's always interesting to see how much it costs and how much work it is. I do think that often the cost savings part is left out. If you're getting your veggies out of the system and some of the family meat (fish) requirements, do you have an idea of how much savings you're getting?

Also people often leave out the cost saving of not eating food that contains poisons.

Regards, Martin.

To be honest Martin I have no idea of the cost savings. But like you said you get a fresh non contaminated product. I love getting back to basic's and being able to grow ones own produce.

I see all the costs as an investment, more than anything else, but thank you for the info, that gives me an idea on how much I need to save