Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It's one of the 50 gallon Rubbermaid stock tanks so about 12 inches deep with about 10" being volcanic rock and Hydroton. I planted it around the time Faye planted hers. Here's a picture of the plant -




It's about a foot wide from side to side and a bit more front to back. The top of the plant has a spread of about 5 ft because I let it sprawl a bit.

i think it's movable.. but i'd flood the bed for a good 10-15 minutes before moving it...
i had a bummer note today, this am, i woke up and found a dead marm in one of the 55's.. it died after it molted, happens some times,.. i do treat the tanks with marine iodide to help with molting so it doesn't happen often
and then, when i came from work tonight and was looking things over,, i found that my biggest marmokreb died.. it's antennae (sp??) were sticking limply out of it's hide.. it must have just died today, it was berried, so a double bummer..
a good point of it is that i think i've pretty much found the max size that they'll get
got a couple of pic's

it's not all bad news though,,
4 glass tanks with crayfish hatches doing well, and even though i can't see any of the glass shrimp, there are tiny little things swimming around that i suspect are shrimp instar
rosy red's doing great even though i haven't had much green water for them, yeast and flour have been working well, and my green water is starting to bloom

and outside (non ap, but i water regularly from the big fish tank) i have some crazy marigolds that are trying to compete with the sunflowers

after some online research, i can confirm that i don't know what the little critters are in my 40 gallon tank.. the tank started with glass shrimp and a single marmokreb, but i don't think any glass shrimp are left, but the crayfish is still there.. i see tiny dots swimming erratically, then they "land" on the glass walls of the tank.. then they scurry around on the glass.. or they land on a rock and bounce around the bottom.. weird little creatures..
since i couldn't figure out what they were i decided to throw some rosy red fry in the tank, whatever they are they look small enough for them to eat

harvested the last of the fish from the pool, 19 total, there were 2 tilapia left, both over 3lbs, and both had eggs.. 2 bluegill, 1 unknown sunfish (maybe a gsf) and 14 yellow perch, 4 packs of fillets went into the freezer, and i tried something different for dinner..
fried some garlic, fennel and dill in some olive oil until it softened up, then added a couple cups of home-made tomato sauce and let it simmer for about 15 minutes, and let it cool
greased a baking dish, put a little of the cooled sauce in the bottom, put fillets in the dish, then topped with the remainder of the sauce.. some seasoned panko on top, then into a 375degree oven for about 15 minutes, then the under broiler for a couple minutes to brown the top a little
in a word, delicious!
now to figure out what to do with the pool

Sounds like a good fish dinner Keith but there's some mystery because there was no mention of which fish you chose to cook?

Maybe those critters were Scuds? They swim upside down and bump into things.

ahh,, i cooked about 10 fillets, 8 were perch, and 2 were bluegill..
i've had scuds for a while, and they're not too difficult to identify.. these were just tiny spec's.. hadn't seen anything like it up to that point, but they're gone now!
i'll try to post a couple pic's tonight (of the harvest)

here's the last harvest of the year...
i moved the rosy reds and crayfish from the sump to the pool, but they keep making their way back to the sump,, gotta work on that
anyways,, here's some fish
yellow perch, a couple bluegill and i think a green sunfish, all 3 of the sunfish are from when i started my system in 2010

both tilapia were 3+lbs, and both had eggs.. since they were the only two tilapia left, it didn't really matter..

Those sunfish sure take their time getting up to size. I swear some of mine haven't grown at all while others took off pretty well - huge difference in size. I've only had them for about a year with the largest being around 4 inches and the smallest maybe an inch and a half. I can see a big difference in how they eat as well. I've graded them into three separate groups. I'll be curious to see if they are all bluegills when they get older although some of them may wind up as food for the catfish if they don't start growing soon.

Not that I'm suffering too much here for fish since I can have trout but I do wish they'd allow Yellow Perch. I think they're worried about the invasive mussel species coming in with shipments from your region or the potential for competition with trout since they apparently eat similar foods.

I don't know if you have large net pots for 5 gallon buckets where you are but I made a pretty good strainer for my SLO using a large net pot, stainless steel screws and a 5 gallon bucket lid with a 4" hole for the SLO pipe to go in. The original SLO is just surrounded by this so less chance of a blockage. I'm thinking you could do something like this and then line it with a finer mesh to keep the rosy reds in.

Keith. I think your odd panfish might be a warmouth bass. They run in the same areas as gsf. Coloring looks right and the mouth cut looks correct.f

i think you were right erik.. it was tasty!
been a while since i've updated.. it's pretty chilly in the basement, water is in the high 40s
lots of minnows, crayfish and scuds

even with the cold water, oregano and rosemary have taken over one bed..

i've tried planting fennel a few times, it never came up when i put the seeds in, but i still get one popping up every now and then.. the jades were cuttings from my daughter in law.. i'm going to trim out a few more cuttings to have them fill half the bed


one more of the ft

Hi Keith,

Looks pretty good for this time of year, the rosemary especially

Keith,

Thanks for sharing all your pics and the ongoing journal of your system. I'm just embarking on my first AP system in our basement to enable me to bring in 55 tilapia I released in my garden pond as fingerlings the first week of June.

I've been growing duckweed and cress to augment my pellet feelings, but love your examples of raising protein for them as well. I used to do that both when I raised live bearers and while I had a reef tank for five years.

Pat