Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Does that big silver eat duckweed Murray. I must make me one of those towers and put some strawberries in it. Might convince my wife that I am doing something more than wasting my time and our money.

VB, I don't know if the Silver is eating the duckweed, sorry....but it is sure eating something. I have never actually observed it eating anything.

I will put some pix of the strawberries up over the weekend, they are really going well.
Murray

Here are the pix now of strawberries in tower.

Sorry, I should not have posted these photos above in this thread, perhaps I should have put them in Tower System thread. I don't think I am able to delete them and re post them .......Sorry Steve
Mojo

looking good there murray, looks as if you will get some fruit soon

Is that 90mm piupe Murray. I can't help but wonder whether these plants will have enough room for the crown once they are full size. Mind you its fine for the leaves and fruit to hang out everywhere as they get bigger.

Are they all new fruit Murray - or did you leave the ones on that were there when I gave them to you. I remember saying not to be tempted to leave taht fruit on as it may effect their survival. Perhaps you were tempted, and if so it has worked out for you - just shows how much I know

VB, The fruit is all new, I followed your advice and snipped off all the existing fruit and sad looking leaves. Some of the other strawberry plants have 5 or 6 new flowers each. Note the rich dark colour of the leaves.

Yes it is 90mm down pipe, held together with duct tape.

I run the pump all day, continuous flow, and turn it off at night when I cover the fish tank to conserve heat in the system.

Appears to be working well.

Murray

No worries muz, mi posting thread su posting thread

AA it is a standard 3 tray cannister filter, i moved all the clay ball media into one tray, covered by fine filter material, first tray has coarse filter sponge and last tray had carbon pouch covered by fine filter material.

Seems like they are slowly adjusting to the clear water conditions.

Interesting, will store the PH swings in the "memory bank"

I can't believe that people religiously change their carbon every two months and worse still their filter media (noodles) every four months

I have found some info on KH and total hardness (GH?) for silver perch, and i'd assume that jade would be simmilar. Will clean up the info and post it somewhere, as well as the original link whick contains water parameters for every conceivable subtance (heavy metals, phenols, etc) most of which i CANT imagine being a problem, let alone testing for

one VERY interesting level that was listed was flouride and the associated problems with using grid water! Maximum stated levels for flouride for silver perch were between 0.1PPM and 1.0PPM (data came from various sources). Now considering our grid water is dosed at 1.0PPM flouride.............do the maths any evaporation and subsequent top ups will raise it above the 1.0PPM. I don't think the paper was meaning that above 1.0 ppm all your fish are going to die, more so that it will affect their immune system and or growth rates. Still, i'm glad that i'll be aiming to top up with rain water. Doh! i should be starting to collect that NOW, not in summer! Oh well, a trip to the recycle yard for me.

By the way, does anyone know the best "product" to remove oils? I'm in the process of cleaning out primrose oil from an intact blue drum. I'm about to try dishwashing detergent, then washing powder. Ordinarily i wouldn't be phased, but its for a home brew experiment at a mates place LOL

Something worth noting for those thinking of growing strawberries in their greenhouses, I am pretty sure that they are mainly bee and insect pollinated. If they are not properly polinated, the fruit will not be full and even.

VB, i was thinking along those lines just today. I checked on my system, and the snow peas have doubled in length in about 3 days, and have flowers 5 days after i planted them i was thnking "now how are these flowers going to get polinated"

Good point.

Anyone had any luck manually pollenating them? Can it be done?

not sure if its different for different plants, but i read somewhere that you can use a little paint (like kiddes) brush and do it that way from flower to flower.

Some one else may have more knowledge in this area

I know you can pollenate pumpkins- pick the male flower and have a go at the female flower with it. Strawberries are seemingly different- hard to know what are the male and female flowersor maybe each flower has a male and female part. Maybe Gary could help us with this one? - I don't know how they work...

Pretty sure peas are self pollinating as are toms. Manual polination is an option for cucurbits, like zuccinis and pumpkins, but to do this for strawberries would send you mad as there are too many of them. I reckon if you are to grow strawbs these towers would sit on the outside of the greenhouse and have piping going back into the greenhouse. There will of course be some loss of temperature, but you make your choices.. Could always turn of the pump to the ourstide towers at night like Murray is doing.