Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I had tilapia and comets together for several months, and I would expect that tilapia/koi could work, too. Tilapia will die at under 60F, and will happily go into the 90's. Comets and Koi will go quite cold (I guess as long as the water is still liquid, they are OK). I had my comets up to 85F and they were fine. Right now, I have the tilapia at 80F and they are doing great. I think if you could give them just a little heat over winter nights to keep them at say 70F, they would do fine.

Saturday I "accidentally" got some more fish. I had stopped at a small aquarium shop looking for some plants to put in my tank. The guy was in the process of going out of business and most of the store was half empty, but he had a 40gal poly tank with 18 orandas and a bunch of small feeder fish in it. I got tank and all, for $50 along with a few plants! The best thing is the 40 gal of cycled water . He still has some hardware and such so I may stop by again and pick up a few tanks and things for future projects (10 gal tanks for $5)
Now I'm looking for homes for most of the feeder's.

The veggie plants seem to be doing fine dispite the lack of nutrients, last week I had sprinkled some kelp meal over all the gravel so that may be helping some. The strawberries are doing best of all, I pulled one of the net pots out of the gravel and saw excellent root growth coming out of the bottom.


I tested the water last night.
PH - 7.9
NH4 - .5 ppm (definitely not 1 but could be .75)
NO2 - .5 ppm
NO3 - 0

I'll post some pics tonight

-Stevo

i used to always accidentally get more fish best place for the feeders is inside table fish

Todays water test
NH4 -1ppm
NO2 -1ppm
others same.

some pics,

-Stevo

I built my strawberry gutter tonight.


-Stevo

that's a nice bargain you picked up, artistic mill. I tend to accidently get chooks and seeds.

The Aussies take their pictures in their bare feet.

Looking nice!

LOL, I'm going to have to start putting peculiar items in the background just for fun

How big do talapia have to be to eat feeder goldies?

-Stevo

Tilapia are generally vegetarian. I don't think you will get them to eat goldies. Now they will eat your lettuce.

Good pick up..both artie and Janet....had me rechecking the pics to find the covered foot

Great haul! Don't be shy show them toes.

doesn't count....that was a shoe.

update, 2 1/2 weeks since startup,

Things are starting to happen


I got pea soup over the weekend. and..

NH4- .5ppm (down)
NO2- 5ppm (way up)
NO3- 10ppm
PH- 7.6 (down)

My ammonia never got above 1.5, but I did my first water change today (50%) because of the nitrites. The past few days the plants have some noticable growth and I have 1 bean growing

pics.

-Stevo

Got another good score today,

(2) 10gal tanks, (1) 20gal with ugf, heater and pump for $50

and a treadmill motor 120vDC, great for a wind generator! $free!
hooked it up to the meter and a quick spin by hand gave 3vDC.


Stevo

you HAD to do it didn't you