Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm still quite new with it, I just look at Ryan's system and he's filtering everything far more than me, and results are impressive. I want to double or triple the system size with DWC (if I can get it growing properly), I like the system better, more order to it.

Could the vermiculite be slowing down the growth (it's in the net pots)?

Yea cool, didnt realise you wanted to go larger, my comments are more directed at the backyard sense. We may never know how Ryan deals with wastes but my guess is he's using drum filters, digestors etc and puts a fair effort into controlling nutrient profiles etc and years of knowledge and experience.

I doubt the vermiculite is slowing growth, my guess is your removing valuable nutrients with your prefiltering.

I've only had the filters going for a few days now, so I can't blame that. I've dosed it with powerfeed a few times, and seasol.

Does the air on the roots make a massive difference?

I'm planning on not buying supermarket F&V anymore, if I grow too much, I was going to consider the local farmers market

Ah ok, It sounded to me like you're actually putting the vermiculite in the DWC bed itself. If it's in the net cups than I'm sure that is fine.

Thanks Charlie, as usual you're a source of illumination..

I discovered my mobile phone has a camera in it...

Great growth you got going there Col. how you guys handling the heat? Been keeping track on the web, is it starting to cool down? Looks like you've got a few days that are a bit cooler. Regards, Martin.

The heat didn't even seem to phase it. The corn I had in the ground was cooked, but everything in the AP didn't even wilt (apart from one lettuce, but that was it).

I'm quite impressed with it. I think i was knocked around more than the plants.

I'm thinking it might me the medium I used in the DWC that's holding it back (or I need more nutrients from bigger fish).

Give the fish time to grow, and we'll see how it goes.

I've been reading up on bio-digesters, I'm thinking I might have to make one that comes from my filter. Break up all the solids

Sounds good, glad the system handled the heat well.

Regards, Martin.

Well I sort of have my sensors all up and running. But the wifi repeater, or my router/modem is stuffing up. It'll work for a short period, and then just stops working. Half the time it takes out my modem at the same time, and won't start up until I restart the routers. I'll try support tomorrow.

But have a look at the link my my signature. The sump is quite interesting, you can see the volume going up and down (if you click on raw data points, you can see the exact readings.).

Good stuff man. Like those growbeds. Did you put any kind of adjuster bolts/feet on the bottom of the legs to occasionally level them back out?

I see your tomato plants have some nice growth. If you snap off the lower leaf branches and leave the top leaf branches, your tomato trusses will grow larger. The plant is still pushing nutrients and water to the leaf branches when it should be feeding the tomatoes. Eventually the lower leafs will die off anyway. Just a suggestion.

I need to get myself a welder!!!

Sounds good with the toms, they are getting very bushy at the bottom, this might clear out a bit to let the light in. The roma's are going nuts atm, I'll need to do some more tieing them up soon.

No adjustable feet, although it would have been a good idea. I've got them sitting on a paver for each leg, when it's out, I pull out the car jack, raise the whole thing up, and add more, or take away the dirt where needed.

When I first put it in, without the paver, the whole bed sunk 10cm's into the ground.

Learning to weld is great, and comes in very handy for many jobs. Get a semi good one from gumtree/craigslist and you won't regret it.

Still not fantastic growth with the DWC. No problems with the roots taking off (for the bigger ones anyway):



But just for comparison, this one:


Was planted at the same time as this one:


There is a lack of scale, but the first one is twice the size.


My tomatoes were starting to take off and overcrowd everything.



So I thought it was time for some pruning. (Thanks for the advice Bill.)










And this is a 100L wheelbarrow



My passionfruit is starting to take off too. When I've over seeded something, I'll take some of the seedlings and throw them in here.

It was a little touch and go with the rhubarb, all the original leaves went red, died and fell off, but it seems to be sending lots more shoots out the side. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I also put in some pumpkin for the fun of it, the passionfruit couldn't be needing much root space yet.

Okay, despite stupid heat again today, I got the proper air pump up and running.

Hopefully that'll get the DWC up and powering on.

Quick question, do electromagnetic pumps get hot normally? Mine is pretty hot.

I stole a few ideas from others on this forum, seeing how they pipe the air up to different beds. I've left it open to expand easily when I get my other beds up and cranking.








And I've been setting up my bio digester, hopefully I can automate it all. The pipes go under the filter boxes, and I've got a small 12v pump, so I'll hook it up to a relay, and then with the arduino and a few relays, I'll make it fill and empty.

I posted this in my how much water am I using thread, but I thought I'd try it here in case somebody else might have an idea and don't look in that part of the forum.

I've been going through a lot of water lately. 300L during our 42 day last week.

Well I found my hole.

I thought I had a bit of fiberglass cloth that blew in there, and I didn't pay enough attention to it.

I went to pull it out:



Seems I have something growing into my fish tank. I think it's the grape vine next to the GB.

Does anybody have any suggestions at all? Because I'm at a loss of how to fix it. If I silicon over the hole, it'll just grow straight back through.

Any suggestions?

Did the roots make their way into the beds by going under the sides of your FT frame? I would have thought being as deep as it is in-ground it'd be enough to stop the roots, so burying a weed guard/barrier between the grapevine and the FT would probably not be of much use. If it's made it's way through the gaps between the timber sleepers then maybe a weed barrier would help a bit, but really the only thing I can think of other than a physical barrier would be removing/relocating the plant.

Hmm, sorry, not overly helpful. I hope you can get it sorted, at least you found out the cause I suppose, such a bugger though!