Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Styro foam sandwich starter was working well, but took a tumble when the water ran away last week. Seedlings in potting mix growing well. Well sort of. Snails attacked again, so need to keep giving the dregs of my beer to the traps, but half of them survived. Want to plant them out now, but still scared of snails.

Note to all, beer traps do work for slugs and snails, and the (grow) bed smells of beer. Hmm, beer.

Fish have survived the scare of no water/fresh water and are eating well.

Tomatoes have great flavour but a bit mushy/flourery. Any ideas why not firm. Weather not consistant enough perhaps? Picking too early?

Thinned out the tomato bushes so I could see some of what is going on in the bed. Will try and maintain around perimeter, and get some other stuff growing.

Planted the lettuce seedlings, and refilled beer traps.

Went out late and pulled out a few slugs and snails.

All lettuce intact this morning.

Nice work on the slug traps. Where do they hide during the day?

I think they hid underground or in bushes in shade. Some have spoken about flooding the GB for extended periods to get them to come out. I'm reasonably time poor at the moment so I haven't tried it yet.

Kids have something else on tonight, not sure what, karate maybe?? Monday is the only week night I don't have stuff on in evening. Note to all that haven't started a breeding program. Three kids take up a lot of time, especially if you encourage them to do sport! Then if you coach some in a team, oh and helping with homework......

good weekend last weekend, one catch, four wickets, one run out, and two not outs whilst batting for two kids in cricket matches.

You should train your kids to hunt slugs and snails.

I have three too Doc. An 8y.o. and 2 1/2 y.o. twin girls so I know what you're talking about. My wife gets the brunt of the after school shuffle and the girls aren't at school yet but I can see that it is going to be hectic when they're older. As twins they chose to make our life easier by being total opposites so there's no chance of them both wanting the same activities, wearing the same clothes or listening to the same music. If one does ballet the other will do karate, etc.

It is going to be interesting.

I am so time poor at the moment I am in debt.
I am going to have to live at least two years past my death to catch up on everything.

Ouch on all of the above MC.

All boys for me 12,10 & 7.

We do three matches most weekends. 3 x soccer in winter, 3 x cricket in summer.

Weekends sound very full Doc.

I think that is why AP can be such a good process as you don't have to stand and watch. If you set up the system well and have some backups it can run well with daily feed and ad hoc maintenance.

Hi again Dr Bee
fortunately my kids are now adults and have moved to Perth (thats not so good), but we have also done all that taxi and coaching and sport stuff so know what you mean about time deficit but have I got news for you... It doesnt get any better after they leave!!! I now only work 4 days per week with every intention of catching up on jobs round the house but I am getting more and more behind. I agree with MartinC that I have to live longer beyond my time to catch up!!!
A technical AP question. My grow bed is infested with little moths similar to pantry moths right now. I have hit the plants with white oil and this has helped but I am about to give insect spray a go but am concerned about the impact upn S Perch, Trout and marron. Any ideas on how to tackle the bugs?
Marticulus

You running a very amazing thread here Dr. Bee ! I’m a mother of 2 little boys, so I’m home with the two little devils My hobby became the gardening and I started to grow some vegetables by aquaponics. I found a very nice guide how to set up a whole aquaponics system here:
Admin - Link removed

You should check it if you are also interested in urban agriculture. They just ate chips and sugar before, but now we have some lettuce and tomatoes, and the kids really love it

Bye

Had to do school drop off this morning, so had the opportunity to catch up on some weeding. Also got a few feeds (three) into my fish. Boy are they greedy, but if I was to put two scoops into the tank there would be some left when I get home from work. Funny that.

There seems to be more tomatos ripening each day now that I thinned out my crop. Has been warmer too. Fruit firmer and heaps of flavour. Still getting a punnet every two days, they are just bigger, look like the ones in the shops but taste better.

Marti - I had issues a few years ago and am in the habit of regular sprays of Dipel. Those moths are everywhere. You really see them when driving at dusk! Frogs love them, but I am no good at getting frogs to stay around the patch.

Damn these spammers are getting sneaky.. See above..

Sarah,

Thanks for your encouragement.

My middle son who doesn't like tomatos said to me last night " That was the best tomato I have ever tasted "

Good to know I'm doing something right!

Boy I didn't pick that as spam, but I didn't look at the link. You have the best guide EB.

Yep.... Really hard to tell sometimes Dr Bee, but hey if you want to see the link it's easydiyhomeDOTcom Very spammy, selling a number of rubbish e-books, including my personal favourite AP4U renamed to "AP for idiots".

Thanks EB,

I don't often go to those websites. I am very cautious about where I look on the web, and so far have stayed relativley spam & virus free.

I stick to this site, have got heaps of ideas to keep my little setup healthy, and enjoy some light banter (Not so much the heavy opinionated stuff though!)

I did not see the link before it was removed which is fine. I suppose the totally empty profile is a bit of a giveaway?