Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

made a pump pit, laundry basket wrapped with bird netting and all in a poly soak well.

Hoping it will add a bit of bio-filtration.

Update:- all fish and yabbies seem happy in new ploy lined pond. only saw one claw, I guess from yabbie territory dispute? Dam hard to see anything in the blackness!

Seeing as my fish and yabbie breeding has taken off inadvertently, thinking maybe I should make a little nursery section in the pond?

was thinking of a 1.2 x 1 m plastic barrier in the pond filled with river stone and plants the plan being to give the baby fish and yabbies somewhere to hide.

Is this a good idea?

Yabby babies: Cut up some cheap pvc pipe (plumbing, electrical) into short strips. It should sink. This will make good homes for the smaller yabbies. Also, putting lots of river pebbles into the bottom of the pool will allow the smaller yabbies to hide underneath them and keep away from the larger ones. Normal black poly pipe doesn't sink, so if you used that you would have to make it sink by pushing a rock into the middle of each piece and make sure it is jammed in their safe.

For the young goldfish: aquatic plants will keep them safe. The leaves of the plants in the water (and their roots) will also be what the goldfish spawn their eggs into, and with more plants the larger hungry goldfish will have a harder time finding the yummy fish eggs and baby fish.

Nice work mate
How did you end up fixing the liner to the pool?

[/quote] For the young goldfish: aquatic plants will keep them safe. The leaves of the plants in the water (and their roots) will also be what the goldfish spawn their eggs into, and with more plants the larger hungry goldfish will have a harder time finding the yummy fish eggs and baby fish.[/quote]

My grandfather use to leave an old mop in the pond when the goldfish were pregnant then just lift it out into another nursury pond once they lay there eggs on it.

like the old mop idea MatyH,

the liner was held on with nail it plugs, was daunted by the hole drilling but we got those done pretty quick.

We drilled the plastic edging with the concrete then put the liner in and added water to hold it down.

the liner was punched with a sharp point and the nail-it fastened.

only issue is there is some water under the liner! not sure how to get it out or should I leave it.

just a bit weird having "bubbles" moving around under the liner.

Was wondering about putting pebbles into the pool mduncan2, but was concerned about cleaning etc?

the next stage is a deck over the pool and more GB's this will give me room for 4 off 0.9 x 3.6 m GB

also might put some wicking beds in for spuds and carrots.

just needs some money thrown at it....

well the liner has made a difference. pH is finally down, ironic if I have to add lime or such to raise pH.

had a bit of drama with my baby tank. with the holiday season and some over feeding, the NH3 went berserk, did some water changes and stopped feeding for a couple of days. now the NH3 is down to 0.25ppm.

I get lots of amusement watching the baby yabbies chase the baby fish.

You might need to add something, because you look like you might be trending for a crash...

With the large system, if the pH gets too low, you will probably need to add something to keep the pH from getting down off the chart. Don't fret, this is actually a good thing, and now you will be able to use your pH buffers to also help make sure you have a good balance of calcium and potassium since you will be able to change from a calcium buffer to a potassium buffer as needed. When you have an unregulated source of calcium carbonate getting into your system (like with limestone or shell media, a plaster/concrete tank, or really hard well water) it can get really hard to get enough potassium to your plants. Now you can choose which buffer to use and provide better nutrition for your plants.

I will keep checking it, it was surprising how low the pH was at.

if it gets much lower might look at getting some potassium hydroxide or such.

Don't wait to long to get it. You want to take action before the reading is too low for your test kit to read. (Using the API kit, you don't want the reading to actually get down to 6 because if it reads 6 it could be way lower and you have no way of knowing.) Also with bacteria and a system that "grew up" with a high pH, when the pH does drop the bacteria have to work really hard to get used to the lower pH so you want to make sure you keep the pH from dropping too fast or doing a bunch of bouncing so it is better to take action sooner rather than later. The goal is to stabilize the pH at a good plant appropriate level that you can maintain easily.

oops must got a contaminated sample or something, Main FT pH is 7.8???

glad I put some shade over the GB before yesterdays scorcher.

peaches from the mini-peach tree. yum.

the pot sits in the media guard, must remember to check roots aren't getting into the siphon.

Well, Yabbies didn't the food being reduced in the baby tank, had a go at the fish!

never knew yabbies hunted in packs.

excuse the video taken on phone and never posted on Utube before.