Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looks great! I'm jealous :-)


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Thanks, Katmac, though 'tis naught to be jealous of.

My system seems to be fairly stable right now. Leafy greens rule!

Nice stuff, PJL

Wow that spinach looks like it is about to sprout legs and walk away.

The silver beet is proving very popular, Marty, and is literally walking out the door!

I scored a big load of some kind of bio media and have replaced a lot of my biofilter shadecloth with it. Does anyone know what it is called or what its specs are?

My guess is that it probably has a lower BSA than shadecloth, however, it won't get clogged with solids and need rinsing to the same extent.

Nice PJ, but just checking - is silver beet and spinach the same species or are they different?

Silver beet and spinach, although both in the beet family, are very different species, Marty. Silver beet is often (incorrectly, some would argue) referred to as spinach. It is also called chard in some places, or Swiss chard or even spinach beet.

Over here spinach is generally grown as a winter crop. It typically has relatively small, arrow shaped leaves and narrow stems. Silver beet is grown year round but particularly in the warmer months and produces very large, crinkled leaves on large whitish stalks. A beautifully coloured variety - Rainbow chard - is also grown but its stunning stalks are less edible than the plain ones of silver beet.

I give away big, beautiful silver beet leaves by the garbage bag full but the plants continue to look as though they have never been harvested. I might have to look at cooking them up to make my own fish feed.

Thanks for that clarification PJ. nice to know.

This is what 3kgs of trout guts looks like at 0400h after a long night of unplanned scooping, killing, bleeding, chilling, gutting, washing and vacuum sealing of 56 trout.

Looks mean PJ.

Why the unplanned harvest?

And this is what a gill-pulling-out finger looks like after pulling out the gills of 56 trout.

You could mix it into the compost pile, and yes it will stink for a while! Last December I put mine into a 44gal drum with water and lots of vegetative matter, which has been added to with more fish bones and ther kitchen waste over the year, and will dilute the mix and use as a fertiliser on fruit trees.


"unplanned" doesn't sound good when talking about doing a huge fish gutting effort

A disaster, Marty. A bloody disaster and I'm not sure of the cause. I'm too shagged to even count the floaters I pulled out but they fill a large esky. No doubt I'll be greeted by more death when I get back over there later.

I've gotta get some sleep.