Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nitrites showed up today. I received my order of redworms today as well that will go into my worm bin. I tried the european with some success. This time I'm going to try the fetida variety and see if I have better luck.

The fish ate much better today than in the previous days. Even the bigger bream 4" or so were going after the larger pellets that made their way down. Hopefully in a couple more days they will be eating with vigor.

I was able to harvest 2 eggplant to have with dinner tonight. I fried them up cut like french fries and had plenty for my sister and brother in law.

When I'm not playing around with the worms fish or plants, I'm playing with my buddy Bruce a Boykin Spaniel. He amazes me with how smart he is. I'm in the process of teaching him to heel and he realized that if he followed my side when I turn around he gets his treat faster. I had him moving into the heel position and then following me to the next spot in the correct position the whole way. I was very impressed that he did it on his own.

Short clip of him learning to heel. This is about the 3rd practice session which lasts about 5 minutes or so each time.

My lettuce seeds have started to sprout. I will thin them out once I see which ones are doing well. I ended up changing out my SLO based on a design I saw from RobBob. I moved to 2inch pipe instead of the 3inch. Hopefully this helps pick up more of the solids.

The fish like to eat before dusk. I may have to keep feeding them at that time from now on. I did notice that the larger bream (4-5inch) would take the large chunk of crushed pellet. I'm glad they are finally eating, but I hope they will feed on top eventually.

That dog has you trained.

And yet more toes creep into a thread...

Had the first small bream grab a pellet from the top. I was able to catch some grasshoppers, so I threw those in the tank and watched the bream attack them. Those bream are quick little guys. I planted some lettuce and broccoli seed in the growbed and I have a few starting to sprout. I also put a few swiss chard in as well to see if it goes better than my last experiment with them.

My wicking beds are still producing fruit from an eggplant and cherry tomato. I have one more wicking barrel to make, then I'll be able to work on the last 55gal drum to split into wicking barrels. I'll post some pictures soon of the progress.

I finally got around to finishing up the 2nd growbed. I used mostly lava rock and then river rock on the top to see if it will be easier on the hands when I plant. The siphon starts like a champ, but won't completely stop. I need to play with it tomorrow to see what needs to be changed. The lettuce is growing pretty well so far, and I was able to get 3/5 broccoli seeds to sprout. I'll move the smallest one to the new bed and move some of the cabbage/lettuce over once the siphon issue is worked out.

looking good kalarr.

THanks for the update.
Next time dont get leggy lettuce seedlings - if thats what they were.

I was having issues with my pump not moving very much water. I ended up pulling the pump out the sump today and realized that I missed a lot of burrs when I cut the plastic drums. I had a wad in the pump that was slowing down how much water it could move. I finished cleaning the pump and it made a world of difference. I'll be able to move a lot more water than I originally anticipated. Plants are doing ok, just trying to get rid of some aphids that have come around lately.

System doing well so far with this crazy weather. We had a warmer day today so the fish ate a little. My lettuce looks weird, but I'm thinking of making a mini greenhouse to sprout my own seeds next time. I've seen some good ideas from a few people on here. I'm not sure what how fast lettuce is supposed to grow, but it feels like things are moving rather slow.

Short clip of what I've been up to. I finally was able to bring the pH down a bit to the mid 7s. The growth looks to be doing much better since I've adjusted the ph. Fish look to be doing well and I used the GoPro for a short underwater video. It's attached to a string, so it spins a bit.

awesome... more go pro video to come I hope. Now you have to work on how to stabilize the video and edit it up a bit. I'm jealous of your dog, mine bosses me around.

Finally some progress worthy of an update. I ordered some aquamax 400 to feed the bream and so far they seem to be eating it. We've had a couple warmer days 60-70F and the water has warmed up quite a bit. I dropped some pellets in the tank today and the bream absolutely smashed it. This was the first time I've had bream consistently hitting the floating pellets. I ended up feeding them 3-4 small pinches since I'm still not quite sure how much they will eat.

I'm up for ideas on starting tomatoes from seed in a cheap and efficient manner. This will be my first attempt at starting from seeds early, so any advice would be much appreciated!

The wicking barrels are being fed with rice chaff/horse manure/ worm casting mix in preparation for the summer garden. I'm thinking of tomatoes/eggplant/cucumbers then I'm not sure what else I want to plant. If you have a favorite that I haven't mentioned, please let me know!

I ended up shoveling out all the lava rock in my 2 growbeds in order to fix the table I put together. The table didn't have enough support along the bottom, so the legs started to shift and lean. I decided to fix all the little things that I would do differently on my next system since I had the rock out. I ended up making the hole on the top of the sump tank a bit bigger for more flexibility with piping as well as being able to see a big more into the barrels.

I ended up completely changing the piping to the growbeds and I left a few pipes unglued in case I want to change it again. This time I had to hack off the pipe before it got to the first coupling. I may invest in some unions if I ever want to change it again.

I took an idea from Rob Bob's channel and started setting up an auto-topping wicking system. I was able to get a couple 55gallon drums for free and worked out how I wanted to plumb it up. There isn't a close hydroponic store, so I have to order most of the supplies I need online. I was able to connect all 4 buckets together with a few grommets and barb fittings. The water leveled out, so I just need to wait for the float valve and square bucket to come in the mail and I'll be able to finish this project.

My idea is to fill the 4 buckets with a mix of horse manure, worm castings, and some sandy compost to help with drainage. I also have a bit of rice chaff left, so I may put that in 2 of the buckets to compare growth and see if I need to get more to fill all the buckets next year.

I'll be uploading some pictures and another GoPro video of the fish feeding once it warms up.

nothing fancy, just a bit to share

Sometimes being a High School teacher has its perks. With the forecast predicting icy rain, we didn't have school today. This gave me a chance to fire up the GoPro and film the fish again. I wanted to see how my airstone was working in the tank and to see if the algae had died down since I added another layer of shadecloth on the top of the tank.

The shadecloth seemed to do the trick and the airstone is producing quite well. With the weather being cold, I didn't want to throw any food to the fish this time around. Once the weather warms up I'll be able to try to film the fish and show my progress on the auto-top up wicking beds.