Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Les, when you drive through from your place to pick up your tank, why not drop in to say a quick hello. We are at Landsborough so I guess you'll be driving past here.

Thanks Rhonda, I'll take you up on that - rang and was advised another 2 weeks...will PM you when date is confirmed

ok! not monday or tuesday as I do voluntary work in Maleny on those days.

Those fish look like they've grown Forest....

yeah, I think they have. It's a bit hard to judge when you see them every day. They're developing some pattening on their little bodies now.

It's funny, cause I thought mine weren't really growing, then I looked at them yesterday and they have at least doubled in lngth, probably 3 times, and probably 5 times their weight. 10 times as cute too as they get a bit of size to them LOL

great to hear your thoughts on the comparison of soil VS aqua.

I've always loved growing veggies, but to be honest i can't seem to find the time for the soil garden upkeep. Not so with aqua

I know what you mean, Steve. We'll always have a soil garden because we want to produce all our vegetables and fruit but I can see a time when much of it will be in the AP garden and not planted in soil. I'm trying to work out now what is better in AP. It will be a slow process and might take a year or two, but it's worth knowing.

I also like the fact that AP gardening will be much easier in summer here. We get high humidity in summer and no one feels like gardening. With the AP vegies, all we'll have to do it plant the seed or seedling and it's done. It's such a good way of producing fresh organic vegetables.

hahaha! isn't it funnyhow the lazy people find the best ways of avaioding work> and sometimes, just sometimes the idea turns out to be GOLD!

my grandfather syas that our family motto is " lazyness is no go unless carried out to the full "

must mean that im born for AP

Start slow, then taper off.

I've been reading some of the threads and often come across info about compost worms in grow beds. Can someone explain why this is a good thing?

More to the point, how could worms be a bad thing?

When removing plants from the beds you never quite get all of the roots, in fact with some larger plants like tomatoes you can lose quite a number of roots, leaving them in the gravel bed when you pull out the mature spent plant. I guess these will break down very slowly in the bed through natural processes, but worm will speed this process up, breaking down the large solids and converting them into available nutrients for the plants..

So I guess they're performing 2 tasks, helping to remove solids and organic matter from the growbeds, and adding available nutrients to the system..

Fish poo and roots build up in the bed. Compost worms will eat all that stuff and make it more available to the plants. Without the worms, the GB's will eventually fill up with organic matter and plug.

excellent! I have a thriving worm farm how many worms should I add to the grow beds? Is it best to add the juvenilles or the fully grown worms.

Has anyone added molasses to their grow beds?