Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

PetsMart is high. ya'll got Pet Supplys Plus over there. they are much cheaper.

only thing i get at PetsMart is their TopFin hobs and air pumps. TopFin stuff comes with a life time guarantee, no questions asked.

$2 for a feeder fish here. Too much. Need to breed em. Neighbours got mollies was going to convert a small tank to a molly factory for the kokopu.

Wondering if you might be able to use some of your excess pump for cooling dave. Get one of those tower pieces filled with glass marbles in the shade and run water through it.

No idea if marbles cost as much as fish. If they do it would be a lot of marbles

I know, and $2.80 was if you bought 10!! They were $3.50 each under that amount. But on the plus side, they are all still alive!!

We also pay high prices here for feeder fish, almost as much as you do for regular fish... All I wanted was for a load of fish to get my system going anf they wanted almost $2 per feeder - lucky Paradise aquafarm donated 23 barra or I would still have an empty system

My bronze commets cost me $1.50 each. Some of them are looking pretty attractive now

feeder fish again but I got a mixed bag of goldfish 10 for $8 and they also are getting quite large and attractive

Dave, blue gills are delicious pan fish. I used to catch them in ponds when I lived in Ohio. They are alot like sailors choice.

Found some cheaper Goldies today- 10 for $15 or 100 for $125 coloured, or $110 bronze. Aquarium guy was pretty interested in aquaponics too. He had never heard about it, but had oftebn wondered about how to use his waste water. I was there for nearly an hour....

Removed elbows to better control splashing and water loss, and hooked up new rectangular bed (ran out of gravel though). I think the straight shot helps the aeration penetrate deeper. Also, notice the hollow cylinder effect, where surface tension or boundary layer effect makes the water come down in a sheet, as mentioned by VB.

Dave,
just out of curiousity, how's your system doing in this heat we're getting?

Hey AF:
My wife is in charge of it while I am here in Boston for the big 3D graphics conference (SIGGRAPH). She keeps saying it is very hot. They are still dying by ones and twos every day, and I am going to remove the pleco/algae eater, to see if it is predation... I am slowly remembering my hot rodding debugging techniques - i.e. try the easiest fix first. (should be a commandment)

ya may want to have her check the ph, and if possable take a peek at the roots of any plants ya got going.

reason being, with these high temps, root rot is a major concern, and will drop the ph like a rock. ph gets too far below 6, and the bacteria colony crashes.

I haven't been checking the pH much in the last few weeks, after it cycled it seemed to be doing well. I have been topping it off with rain water as needed. I will check the pH tonight for fun.

I pulled all the "place holder" plants and planted mesclun mix seeds. I had done this before, but I am encouraged that this batch appears to be healthier than the previous experimental ones. I have been watering the plants with the tub water when I feed the fish - I think this helps them until their roots can well reach the water line.

The fish stopped dying while I was gone , except for one yesterday. It had a red sore spot on it near the gills. Flukes? I read yesterday that flukes can dissipate if you don't keep introducing new fish. I am going to keep the population as it is now, unless they start dying off again.

In the future when I have a spare tank I plan to quarantine the new pet store fish and treat the hell out of them before adding them to the system, to keep their pet store parasites and whatnot more under control.

Good idea on the quarantine.

One week's growth, hittin' its stride now.

Rectangular grow bed was planted with seeds this weekend, will watch its progress too.