Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Eat insects, greens and grains- not ideal for my AP greenhouse, I'd prefer to eat some of the produce myself!

They eat the bugs off of your plants.

A bit cooler weather and some rain meant no ice was required during the week, which let me build up reserves in time for the next hot spell, coming up in a few days. I fed them an average of 325g of 7mm pellets for the week, and used 305g KOH and 45g Ca(OH)2 to maintain around pH6.7.
The chooks ate a few kg of chard, and we used some in cooking, as well as some brocolli and spring onions. Only one nice large strawberry was picked, and most of the plants are sending out runners, so I might think about putting them in some outside towers once they are ready to cut.
The tomato plants continue to grow like crazy, with lots of fruit, although none are ripe yet. The corn stalks all have cobs forming with tassles, so I'm really looking forward to eating them




On 12/11 I found a floater, so it would have been dead for a few days, eyes a bit cloudy as you can see in the photo, and was a bit smelly. I hadn't looked carefully around in the tank under the cover for a couple of days due the stormy wet weather. Maybe it got too chilled out when I added all the big blocks of ice in the hot weather a few days earlier... or maybe it wasn't eating because the 7mm pellets were too large for it? It was only 135g, one of the smallest fish in the tank, and the flesh was white, which I thought was unusual for fish that had been fed 7mm Skretting pellets for over a month. The only other deaths were months ago, very early on- one jumper, 1 stuck under the pump, and one I hit on the head as it was looking unwell when the Ich was around. The rest of them look to be healthy and swimming around as normal, so this one may have to remain a bit of a mystery. I'm no trout anatomy expert, but didn't seem to have many organs inside, maybe they had rotted away.
I checked water chemistry at 6pm that day: Ammonia 0.25, Nitrite 0.25, and Nitrate is high again at ~200ppm. All the plants are growing well, so I guess I need more GBs to use Nitrates at a higher rate.



In preparation for the after-life of the other 76 trout, I've bought a Breville Fresh Keeper Duo vacuum sealer unit, which will get tested out on some pellets before the fish, as the black ants appear to have discovered them

I am also getting a vacuum sealer, a friend has no more use for hers so timing is perfect. Need a smokehouse and some strength to kill 80 trout and I'm all ready.

75mm of rain from quite a few thunderstorms added over 500litres of water to the system this week, a nice change from the past few very dry months.
The trout weren't as hungry as normal, not helped by my absence on a couple of days, so they missed out on a few feeds. Average 240g/day of mostly 7mm pellets, and I added 40g Ca(OH)2 + 235g KOH, down quite a bit on last week, to maintain ~pH6.7, and it did dip into the mid 6.5s one day when I was away. The weather has become more stable today, and they are eating well again.
Lots of celery in seed ATM, which I am planning to save for future crops, and removing the huge plants will free up a bit of space for other plants soon. Lots more chard fed to the chooks, and I'll have to pick a few heads of brocolli today, as the flowers are just starting to open. The carrot tops are getting huge and from the little I can see of the tops of the root, they appear to be growing well.
Edit: Almost forgot that I picked my first lettuce this week too, which is quite tasty

The tomatoes in outside GB#8 have grown large enough to form their own jungle-like ecosystem, somebody didn't get in there with some trellises soon enough

I need to better cover the sump tank, as I think quite a bit of heat is being added to the system there. The dark smoky polycarbonate, which was supposed to stop 90% of the heat, does no such thing. It does stop algae growing though.
42.5kg of ice was added to the FT on the morning of the 21st, a hot day when I was away until late.

Get some Aluminet shade cloth or heck even a white tarp to throw over the sump which should reflect more of that heat instead of catching it. I could see the smoky polycarb blocking 90% of light or 90% of UV but not the infared or heat and what heat it does catch, it will also be blocking in. If you can prop the edge of the cover and blow a fan across or let wind blow under the sump cover you may be able to blow out a bunch of the captured heat.

Perhaps related to the generally more settled weather and only one hot day, feeding rates were higher this week, averaging 310g/day. Due to other committments including having to harvest my cherry crop, I got a bit behind the required hydroxide addition rates, and acidity did get to pH 6.35 one day, and was generally in the range of pH 6.4-6.6. Today is looking like being their highest feed amount, up to 420g by 13:00. There are a small number of trout that are a fair bit larger than the rest- I think large enough to harvest, but I'm planning to keep them all alive as long as I can. I still have about 4.5kG of 7mm pellets to get through, plus the leftover 12kg of 5mm and a 3kg of 3mm, which I'm hoping the Murray Cod will take.
75g Ca(OH)2 and 305g KOH were added during the week to slow the acidifcation.



The Universal Pumps sump pump stopped working on the morning of the 29th, when I gave it a bit of a shake to clear a few leaves and uneaten pellets from around it prior to netting them out. It had previosly lost the head of the lower cover attachment screw, which I never found, and is probably somewhere in a GB now, it seems to have corroded through a manufacturing fault and fallen off. Now a 2nd screw is missing entirely, I can't see it in the ST, although since it seems unlikely it could go through the pump (the rotor isnt showing much wear or damage), it must be lurking in the biofilm and crud somewhere. There was no water pumping for about 3 hours, but still plenty of aeration, and the fish were not looking stressed. I used my older Pondmax 8000 for a few hours in the afternoon until I had a chance to look at the pump. Now the base cover is held on with 2 zip ties and one remaining screw.

There was about 20mm rain on the 29th, and I also added water to the system that day, obvious by the decline in salinity.

Carrots- I harvested a few of them this week due to some looking like they were about to flower. They were a punnet of multi-coloureds, and the orange ones tasted good. Some of the white ones were a bit too woody to eat, but another one I picked this mornning was just ok, but not what I'd call delicious. I think I might leave any more carrot plantings until I have some wicking beds.
I harvested 2 X 500g beetroots a couple of days ago too, and cooked them in the pressure cooker this morning, and they are as delicious as the previously harvested beets.
The button squash I planted in the ground near GB#8 have been producing well, they have been delicious too, as had the chard, and the chooks are still getting about 500g of that per day.
I found a big infestation of aphids on the brocolli in GB#7 and have sprayed them with eco oil, but haven't had a post-spraying inspection yet.
I picked up some organically grown seedlings yesterday, Grosse Lisse tomato, cylindra beetroot, celery, capsicum, butternut pumpkin, watermelons and rockmelons, zucchini and lemon cucumber, and some corn seeds as the seedlings were all sold. Now I have to make some space to put everything, although some will go in the ground outside.
The mango in a pot, which I had been watering with system water has been suffering fertiliser burn on the leaves, becoming quite bad recently, so I've taken it out of the GH for a diet of straight rainwater. The system watered potted dwarf banana, Thai ginger and cardamom are all going well.
The 2 passionfruit I planted look to be doing ok, but no real fast growth at this stage.


Eggs from this morning, and cherries picked a couple of days ago, the last of the crop, which were a fair bit smaller than the early picked fruit. ~60mm rain just after I started picking meant there was a lot of split fruit... which meant I was standing in the kitchen pipping and preserving cherries for several days.

Nice looking cherries...

Thanks Rupert
I think the juice stains on my hands will take weeks to wear off! Mostly sliced in half, but I did persevere with the pipper for a couple of batches- even with good pippers a lot of the pips dont fit through the hole, so it slows the process down a lot.

The trout have generally been eating well, averaging a new high of ~360g/day for the week. 380g KOH and 80g Ca(OH)2 were added to keep the acidity around pH 6.4-6.5. There's only 2.5kg of 7mm pellets remaining, so I might just get to use them all by the time I want to harvest the trout. About 17mm of rain plus water from my tanks was added on the 4th.

Water temperature stayed comfy for the fish, no ice needed over the week, but the coming week is looking to be rather hotter, low to mid 30s forecast every day. My stash of ice blocks may suffer some depletion.



The Pondmax 8000 doesn't quite have sufficient pumping capacity for my liking, quite a bit of adjustment to the flow restrictors (taps) on each GB has been required to get water into all of them- the adjustmet is quite different to how I have them set for the sump pump. I attempted to get the sump pump operational again a couple of times, holding the bottom cover plate in place with zip ties... unsuccessfully, so am back to the Pondmax for now. At least the batteries aren't so deeply cycled overnight with the Pondmax, which draws about half the power (260W vs 125W).
Close inspection of the remaining cover screw on the sump pump reveals it has a number of holes in it, it is apparently corroding in the AP system water, so it clearly is not stainless steel, as it was supposed to be. It looks to be some crap plated cast metal - not ideal! I'll have to visit the big B to see if they have any suitable SS screws.
A few GBs had insufficient flow for a few hours on various days of messing around with pumps, but no plants were lost and all look well hydrated again now.

The usual masses of chard were harvested, along with a few carrots and some small broccoli heads, and a 700g bunch of spring onions. I also picked my first 3 tomatoes from the system this week, none yet eaten, but all looking good as they finish ripening.

Salad sandwiches coming up- home grown tomato, beetroot, spring onion, shredded carrot and lettuce, along with home made cheese I generally make my own bread too, but have the next best thing- bread from the local organic market.

What a life! Well done Gordon and thanks for sharing. Now I figured out where I went wrong with my KOH addition, I put 2 tsp. into my 8000L system. Could probably add a little more.

I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to share that.

Shut UP!

Don't worry we have all done silly stuff.

Shall I tell you about the time I worked as a kitchen hand and tried to slice the ham without turning the machine on?

Tonight it's spinach and feta rolls, with chard + spinach, broccoli, spring onions and tomato from the AP, thyme from the dirt garden, home made mozzarella, and feta and capsicum (mine aren't ripe yet) from the organic market

mmmmm, looking forward to tasting the Potassium