Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I heard about a theory that say's we human ate allot of our own parasites while evolving. Stories about natives americans and aborigines picking bugs off eachother and eating them by the fistfull.

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I have heard that theory also and it makes sense. Most all bugs are a good source of protein. But if you don't mind I will pass on the fistful in todays world and settle for the occasional bug that flies in ones food or mouth and we don't know about it. Half of that habit is still with us, the picking off part.

As for seeing the leaches in the trench ponds, I never knew they were such good swimmers. One would need to free style to stay away from them. In the water they stretch out fully and swim like snakes.

AP Grow Beds ???




Nope: Leach grow beds





Want to take some home?, Here have a hand full.



And I thought I was in Chinese AP heaven when I saw the beds. oops, think again. BTW, those tanks are only designed for 2 inches of water and would blow out if filled. They are just 5 plastic sheets glued over a wood frame.

Each momma leach makes one or 2 egg sacks. Each sack has from 6 to 12 babies. The little suckers are not very prolific.

never would've guessed. it could be that less offspring ensures they don't overuse their food supply.

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when you did those unsuccessful transplants, were you going from dirt to AP?

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I have never once used dirt or any potting soil. I guess I just killed them with my hands moving them. They were probably too small to move. The pumpkin and tomatoes were much larger and are ok. All seeds are no planted now in net cups so I won't do that again. I also have one bed I just planted today with seeds. See what happens. I want to rotate my setup as easy as I can with fresh plants in the works.

The media was impossible to remove on some of them. I tried filter floss in a roll and loaded seeds every inch. Don't do it. They grow good but the roots get in twined in the floss. If I was going to dirt, I would have moved the entire roll and pruned where needed.

Our large Snake Head decided it was time to fill its belly. The one minnow that looked like a real minnow we just got 2 days ago is now hiding in the Snakeheads stomach. It was a loner and never mixed in with the schools and had not eaten in 2 days so it was probably weakened and an easy strike for the huge monster. The snakehead has to be at least 10 times its size. As far as we can tell the small snake head has not taken any supper yet but it has decided to take over a small cave under a rock. It is so cool to see it wiggle its way in and out every few minutes.

Fish eat fish. That's life. I still have the baby tilapia in the shrimp tank and it has decided to be king of his little domain. He/she is the largest fish in that tank and it is only a bit over an inch long. A couple of shrimp are longer then it but no weight to them. So he/she has taken charge of the only clear ground area in the tank. If any fish or shrimp come within 3 inches, it charges like a ram and tosses them out. One good thing is he has been eating well. Tell tails of poop trailing out of its butt is a good sign.

I know I put 2 other different fish in there and I can't find them and can't find bones or a corpse, so they are really good at hiding.

Planted a Teat 3 GB today with 3 different seeds. Having trouble getting more net cups. Seem I bought all they had the first time. Maybe they had them for years and were glad they got rid of them at last. They told me I would need to order a box if I wanted more. There goes a couple of hundred if I do that. For some reason the seed I planted in the net cups with the same media are doing better then the larger tray. The only difference I can think of is more air hitting the roots?

Seed GB: The one seed GB I made up with markbs help had been put outside to get some extra sun and for the past 2 weeks it was an after thought. It is self watering. Anyways the bed grew into a small jungle. Every plant is inter twined with the next one and so on. Since I have moved over to growing all seeds in net cups I decided to use this patch as fish food. So everyday I pull out 6 plants, shake them off and toss 1 in the shrimp tank and 5 in the FT. At first they had no idea of what to make of it. Now they eat it just like food. The white carp is leading the way and attacks the plants and pulls them down to the feeding grounds where the smaller Alien Minnows take over crunching away at them.

In the shrimp tank, some are now crawling up to the top of plastic plants to catch the greens as they float by and then pull them down to eat them. There are over 200 seedlings so I guess the fish will be eating green for a while. When it is empty, I will start it over again.

Soy Beans; I took some and dropped them in the shrimp tank to see what would happen. Well they were too hard for the shrimp to eat so they left them alone. But after several days the seeds have begun to grow on the bottom of the tank and now the shrimp go to them and feed right off the fresh sprouts. Soy grows really fast. Just get it wet. I have now dropped 6 more into the large Ft to see what happens there. Another day or two will tell.

Frogs: When we were at one of our fishing spots there is a huge old built in swimming pond made in the figure of an Eight. Has to be 30+ years old since used. It is filled from a mountain stream and the exit drain is open so it fills up with water to about 2 feet deep. It is full of tadpoles, snails and shrimp. So it is a favorite spot to go to for collecting. This last trip we collected at least 50 small frogs. Maybe 8mm long. Very small frogs. We got them for the snakehead to eat but Nature said No when we put them in the tank. Not one frog got deeper then a few inches when it was swarmed by the Alien Minnows and torn to shreds and gone in an instant. Mother Nature at work. The pond Minnows knew what tadpoles/frogs were. FOOD!

If I want to feed the Snakehead frogs, they will need to be a lot bigger. At least an inch or so.

On todays adventure we found another pond that is loaded with Alien Minnows. In less then 15 minutes we had over 20 of them. But this time no males. Strange. We did get one larger tad pole and when it was placed in the Alien minnow/monster tank, the minnows tore it to shreds on its second wiggle of the tail. Then the swarm, then nothing. Ok, bigger tad poles for the Striped Snakehead next time. Wow, minnows love to eat frogs and tadpoles. They knew what it was so they must eat them in the wild.

I ordered 3 more glass pickle jars today 1 @ 10L and 2 @ 15L. We need to spread the load out. We have too many fish and shrimp at so many different sizes. Today my wife caught a small fry of a fish and I put it in the baby/shrimp tank. Well they ate it in less then 5 strokes of its tail and the tilapia was in on the kill. They baby tank fish are so small I thought it would be safe. Wrong!

Wow, when are the feeding time videos coming?

it's fun to feed mice to oscars.

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Talking about the leaches of the crazy frenzy fish. I have not seen the snakehead eat yet. They are waiters. they will sit in one spot waiting for a stupid fish to pass their mouth and then gulp.

On the leaches, I was invited back and I hope next time it will be feeding time. If not I will ask him to feed them. He does have a feeding stand where they go to eat.

I will try for any vids if I can.

Ok Wild Bill, never fed my old Oscar mice. He never got that large in a 50 gallon tank I had. But he would jump clear out of the tank and take a fish like they do at the dolphin shows. Took about a year to train him and me several months to catch him if he flew out of the tank.