Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

VB, I sat here thinking wow 100 fish that's a lot, then I realized I have 60 myself... "der..."

Talking about hundreds of fish sounds really hard core!

"You're not a fish farmer until you've killed a million fish" hahahaha I love that quote...

How big are your fish now Dave?

To guess looking at the drain pipe which is 2" wide I would say 4-5"/12cm. That's about as big as my largest gold fish from the previous system.

Some pics to give a quick update on the system. It is a shame that I have nothing in the pictures to show scale. As an indication, the grow-bed top is over 2200mm long and 1000mm wide.

Some more:

I know you say full sun is bad, but I would give my left nut for a bit of your sunshine on my greenhouse. Your lettuces look really solid and that paw paw is going great guns!

The ones with the red tinge (oak leaf I suppose) are about to go to head. The green ones are butterhead. To be honest I don't think the lettuce have ever been too sucessful as they don't seem to fill out all that well. I have heard others say similar. I think there are 2 possible solutions:

1. try a variety that works better; or
2. Just plant densely like I have and don't worry that each lettuce is relativelly small.

up here I rarely have lettuce that "head" up. They grow lots of leaves and then bolt to seed. I think it is too warm for them.
Veggie gardens up here are winter things. I have previously only had any success with veggies from about April through to September.
What I'm trying to say is, maybe it is still too warm for lettuce to do the right thing.

Mate your butter head ones are looking heaps better than mine. I had some good success until the tomatoes shaded them out. I should have taken a piccie of them. They had stalks nearly 3 feet long with ever diminishing leaf sizes up the stalks. It was hilarious.

Jaymie - you are probably right, lettuce do a lot better in winter, which is always a prick cause you tend to eat salads more in summer.

Stu - I've had ones like that also. Will be keen to see how they go up here once I get them into the greenhouse (gotta get a greenhouse first ).

I am still tossing up what shade factor I should go for when I get one.

My humble opinion? About 30%. I got told 85 % is the go for summer. Utter bullshit. A retractable shadecloth cover would be ideal

The VP Structures greenhouses come in either 87% light in or 50% light in. Better to go for the 87% and cover with some shadecloth if needed.

yep, I agree. Pretty hard to add light one you have chosen the low light in option!

Hey Mon how much venting did you do with your GH this summer?
I know you have the shade now did it get steamy in there?
Wondering if this might lead to mould etc

Going to try something like this... but layer of shade cloth underneath...

I'll be north facing, full sun with predominant north easterly seabreeze in summer.... should cool things nicely but more importantly will air away any humidity buildup

In summer roll up the clear cover like below, but leaving shade cloth down.... in winter roll up the shade cloth (until summer) and leave the clear cover down

Think I've got it sussed how to do it....