Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah, I mean in Elizabeth, SA. The good part about being there is that I get a decent block size (for a residential house), and I'm in Elizabeth Park, apparently it's the fancy part of Elizabeth.

I have the same (if it looks good) warning about expansions. I showed her an IBC, and she said eww. So I know how you feel. I got in trouble for not figuring out a floor for under the beds, it's too low to properly mow under, so it'll look scabby....

Let me know if your close to my neck of the woods, and I'll give you a tour.

Yeah my place is tiny in prospect, but I couldn't convince my partner to go any further away from the city lol

So I have another insect problem now.......
These white bugs appear to be causing a bit of a problem. Plants aren't doing so well :s

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Hey great start there Vh202. You would think that the grubs would give you a start wouldn't you?

There is a threat on here about white bugs on cabbages - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... 14&t=19818 - might find something there.

So i ended up using some eco oil on my aphids which cleared them right up. While I've heard oil is not good for fish i haven't seen any side effects and logic tells me that if oil got into the grow need water and ended up in my sumo the pump wouldn't pick it up anyway as it would remain on the surface. I give eco-oil the tick off altruism for the moment.
I now have caterpillar issues though. I've been manually pulling them off but I'm interested in other methods.

Also for the nutrient issues i thought I've been having I suspect that its simply a lack of nutrients haha. Despite me trying to feed my fish at every opportunity I can, I'm finding my nitrates won't go above 5ppm and appear lower than that even. My plants seem to be very hungry! No ammonia though so I suppose that's one good thing.

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I tried the dishwashing detergent trick on the aphids in my system, I wasn't too impressed with it, the plants aren't looking very happy, they went discoloured and some leaves fell off (and didn't kill off the aphids). I might try the eco oil.

Caterpillars are easy, get some dipel from bunnings (or wherever you want). You mix it up with water, and spray it on. Once they eat it, they'll stop eating, and die a little bit later, worked like a charm for me. It's AP safe and all.

Yeah I've killed off all the aphids now. Haven't seen any more caterpillars either so I guess I managed to kill them all.
Plants are still going yellow though. Particularly the lettuce and rocket which are refusing to grow. I'm convinced it's my pH but I'm too stubborn to get a new medium so I guess I'll deal with it.

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It might not be your media. I was having the same problem, same PH too.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21284

Have a read through there.

I think we've got carbonates in our water that raise the PH once the chlorine is gone. I started treating with hydrochloric acid ($5 can buy you more than you'll need in a year, and it's gone down .5 points after first treatment.). I'll do a test for carbonates soon.

My media was definitely a base. Putting the scoria in vinegar will produce a thin stream of bubbles. I'll be interested to see your test results

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So I added some seasol which seems to have picked the plants up a bit. The leafy ones anyway. But now I have a brown film over the top of my fish tank. It's been there for a week or so and had no ill effects yet so i'm guessing that it's not bad for the fish. Anyone else have this after putting in seasol?

I've also gotten around to adding in some siphons which I hope will mean slightly better oxygenation for my grow bed. I was worked about poor circulation with one flood point and one drain point on the constant flood setup.

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Some times you get the film, better to give the bottle a real good rock and roll before poring out. Cheers

Nice little system - very much like my first one which had 90mm out into growbeds.
I would love to see some more pics, and did you do the expansion yet?
Have any ideas for 'pretifying' it for your wife?
I'll get those seeds in the mail some time this week for you

Well we had a rain today and the film on top has completely disappeared. Quite weird, crystal clear water now.
What would you like to see jayendra? Are you referring to my sump expansion?
Thanks for the seeds by the way!

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Ah I see what you mean now. No I'm struggling to find the time and I'm pretty sure she wants me to start doing the bathroom renovation I've been promising her for over a year I'll likely just add a small expansion with a few more blue barrels over the buried sump and leave it at that for the moment.

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My very 70's bathroom is in dire need of a renovation as well. I don't know how far along I'll get before the foot is put down and I need to cross off some jobs

If you want a hand welding up a bed or something, shoot. I'm sure we could come up with something that'd fit into your area perfectly. I've gotten the smaller beds (1m x 1m) I made for the fruit trees down to a fine art.