Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Have a little chow wow /cackle with the chooks and use practical examples (2 Options) fresh eggs or the big chopper axe.. they might get the idea.

They are only young'uns Tonzz, hatched in early November, so I will cut them some slack . Mind you, I've had serious words with them each morning for the last few weeks and was beginning to think they would hold out on me until spring. If they all get the idea, I will have more eggs than I know what to do with

Your comment reminded me that my mum used to lean the axe against the passionfruit vine when it stopped producing - it seemed to work for a few years

Happy birthday for last week JoC, hope it was a good one!

Have you built your venturi yet? If so, could you share how you have done it. I want to do the same as you - splitting flow & aeration to FT, but I have followed a few guides & haven't had any success.

Cheers,
Karen

Thanks Karen, yes the birthday celebrations were most enjoyable, and topped off with the chookies producing their first eggs, and further steps towards purchase of our rural property.

No progess on the venturi as I need to put in another SLO and more GBs to deal with increased flow to the FT. So the extra flow is still being short circuited in the ST. I was going to base mine on this DIY version http://leisure.prior-it.co.uk/diy-build ... turi.shtml which looked simple enough to make, but I haven't tried it yet.
BTW, your greenhouse is looking great in your update

Cheers
Jo

Bit of AP maintenance today. Took out the original lettuces that had bolted and were getting aphids - the chooks loved them. Transplanted some oak leaf lettuce seedlings that sprung up in the gravel paths around the dirt garden. Got the pH back up to 6.8 over a few days with some dolomite dumped at the GB inlets, some wood ash lye, and a bit of potassium bicarbonate. I don't mind adding carbonates at the moment as the water changes with rainwater will be lowering the buffering capacity exacerbating the dropping pH due to nitrification. Will not add any more salt as the edges of strawberries are getting a bit crispy - I probably overdid it last time going up to just over 1ppt (at a guess based on recent water changes). Trout very hungry this morning, hitting the food hard on the surface and splashing me in the face - was earlier than usual and overcast. Yesterday afternoon they weren't particularly hungry and were hanging around near the bottom when I fed them.

great update, thanks man

Hi @joc, your sistem looks great.
I had been reading all you post, and definetly it helps a lot, cause I´m already starting to built my system and not only your experience with the towers, also the information links you shared.
Now that I think that I had defenetly all the information requiered I had a lot to read carefully to do it as better as posible.
When I can (after finishing all the preparatives for my AP system) I will start to telling you how it goes.
I know that it is a week late but happy 50th birthday anyway , I see that you had a great bithday present.

How are going the research for a new property?

Regards

Hey thanks Flow_pow, I look forward to seeing your system thread once you get started.

Great news on the new property front - the contracts have been signed and the deposit paid, and settlement is in late October
I hope to get out there in the next couple of weeks to go through some stuff that the owners are happy to leave for us (stockpiles of bricks, timber, metal and lots of rusty tools, machinery parts and nuts & bolts etc) which will set us up for many future projects. I will take a few photos and measurements of the ornamental pond and the dairy to start planning our new AP systems.



Yesterday was spent at my O/H place tidying up (or 'rediscovering') the garden. I spend the day pruning and mulching, and he spent the day mowing and finding piles of old branches for me to mulch. From a regular house block, he filled a whole 1 cubic metre bulkabag with lawn clippings!!!

Exciting times

Congrats on the property Joc. Fun times ahead


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Your new old property looks awesome, congratulations. You guys are going to be busy...
Gotta say I'm a little bit jealous too...

nice, congrats, and wow that is a really nice photo, everything looks so clear and green and well tended. "Ornamental pond"?

Thanks Brian, Bender and Skeggley. The real estate agents are into using drones to get great aerial shots of properties, and this was taken in late autumn after some good rains. It does dry off in summer, but we have a well for domestic & stock water including gardens and home orchard, and we can buy irrigation water shares for commercial purposes. The property has been looked after very well by the last remaining family member. It is a small part of what was the original family property settled in the 1850s.

The area between the buildings and creek has been subdivided into paddocks and lanes with high ringlock fences for a failed emu enterprise. We could run deer, alpacas, sheep or goats. The diagonal paddocks at the top of the photo are fenced with 2 strand electric fence suitable for cattle. Its 13 acres in total.

There is an ornamental pond in the paved area outside the dining room which had around 70 goldfish until the kookaburras discovered them and the mesh cover was put back on. I will set up a kitchen garden AP system there first, pumping from the pond to some GBs and running the water back down the little rock cascade into the pond. The larger system at the old dairy will be a longer term project once I am there fulltime and have sorted a bunch of other things like resurecting the orchard and fully enclosing it and incorporating fox proof chicken runs.

Meanwhile, my current system is chugging along with pH at 6.6, ammonia at 0, nitritre a smidge over 0, and nitrates at around 150-200. Haven't had time to eat anymore trout, so the 23 that are left are still eating and growing. Will pick up some more food this weekend to see them out for the season. Had a -1C frost this morning, the worst for the season so far. Glad I threw a sheet over the little lime tree last night.

Looks like a bigger system on the horizon, see if you bet Charlie to have it up and running

Wondered why the FT was running a bit high lately - thought I should have a look at the GB inflows...

They are 32mm Ts with reducers down to 25mm distribution pipes with drilled holes. The holes block up to I have taken the ends off to allow water to flow more freely into the GBs


Pays to check these things every now and then...

Growth is still a bit slow as it has been cold and frosty, but strawberries are beginning to flower and the watercress, celery, peas and bok choy are taking off




Picked up 7kg of skrettings for me and another 7 kg for a nearby AP enthusiast from Ian (EEE) at Ideal Fish Food yesterday - lovely meeting EEE and his son IcemanDude. Only had 2 days worth of pellets left, so it was just in time. My trout will have to get used to floating food rather than sinking food. I hope the smaller ones figure it out as they hang out near the bottom waiting for the feeding frenzy to abate and the pellets to sink down to their level.

Three eggs today from the chooks - another one must have started laying

Boy howdy, you old system is absolutely amazing, I can't wait to see what you do at the new property