Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Sorry to hear about the fish, Rairdog.

Rairdog,
I finally read your system thread. What an experience. I'm glad to see your system has worked out so well. Time to replace your fish, have fun.

Real men know how to acquire their fish from nature! Too bad for the loss, but like you said, just a little fishing will do the trick.

Thanks guys. I am still treating system with HCL. The ph will drop to around 6.6-7 and bounce back up. Hopefully I can get it to stay low and buffer up with high ph well top off water. It will take some acclimating for the new fish. My pepper are perking up with the lower ph. They are the reason I'm on an acid binge!

Here are the some of my peppers. They were all the same size to start. These are in the GB's and you can see the off color and upward cupping.


These are looking a little better.


This one is in a wicking 5 gallon bucket and double the size with great color.

Looks great

Went fishing for a bit and brought home 12 nice male gills to restock. I will probably wait a week and add 8 or 10 more once it balances out.



Peppers are getting better color and losing the upwards cupping. I think the big broccoli was robbing potassium and other nutrients from the toms and peppers. My toms stalled in height but after I pulled the broc they took off.


Finally some red in my snack toms.


Happiness is a full truss....especially in a GH.


My tomato support wad sagging so I added some EMT. When the grow past the top of the EMT I am going train them for a tomato roof.

He's in full spawn regalia, a very pretty fish. I wish i had that stud in my 100 gallon breeder aquarium

I kept 12 males this size all in full spawn color. Going for the "no aggression cause there aint no girls to fight for approach" this round. They are pretty much spawned out and guarding the beds. Rip a male and a new one would move in or I would hit another bed. It's a run off pond at a shopping center so I don't feel as guilty ripping beds. I get all my stock from there to avoid transferring parasites.

if they have room to stake out territory I would expect them to make a nest anyway. To them, just because they dont see a female doesnt mean one wont swim up any minute!

I have found that crowding can help keep aggression in check. With tilapia and sunfish.

Cotton I have a 2 acre pond behind my house and an aerator

Its slap full of them

Let me know if you ever need some

Pics or BS! Show me the bulls!

lol sounds like I am going to have to take a break and do a little fishing this weekend

AP is on cruise control so I decided to finally take on bee keeping. After some reading and tube I came up with this from scraps. I got 9 bucks in it. It is based on Kenya top bar design modified with viewing windows and whatever I had on hand. Then Missy and I got a little creative with some paint. Bring on the bees.

Good camoflage and great job on the Top Bar Hive Rairdog. I'm not a beekeeper so I can't say what the bees will think but it looks right to me

Got some bees today! Hive in place with package bees ready to be dropped.

Opening the package...the guy used 2 in trim nails so it took forever to get it open and get the caged queen out. Meanwhile I was swarmed but the redneck sweat pants/shirt and hunting headnet kept me from getting stung.

Bees all settled in


Meanwhile the AP Greenhouse is pumping out toms and chard. I have a K deficiency that needs dealt with.