Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Sorry to hear about the wife, hope she's okay. I gather from reading here that just about anything and everything kills fish, and that is a finely tuned balance. This for me is probably the scariest part of Aquaponics, well that and the fact that I haven't kept fish since I was a kid, and then I didn't pay a lot a of attention to ammonia levels or any of the multitude is qualities of water I'm reading about here. Luckily some stuff is familiar, plants for instance while not having time or organizational skills to keep track of what works in my gardens, I've been gardening for many years. The only thing I've learned about gardening is whenever I think I have something figured out, everything changes. One year it is floods, next bugs, next drought, oh and this year it was a hurricane style hail storm, it even had an eye, you name it, I been through it. Of course it is the un-named that will happen next year. These extreme weather events are making me crazy, and they are the reason I'm doing earth-sheltered greenhouse with aquaponics

Been a long time since ive done any updates , I made the decision to get out of the chemical circus that surrounded me , so sold up and I did move to a Scrub Block . I pulled all my system to pieces took all the components with me and have started again .

After building my third system with an old cut down fiberglass tank im never going back to square fish tanks , I bought a 2000L Aquaculture tank and set my growbeds up with about a 50mm step down each bed this gives a great positive flow along the return pipe to the sump .

I set my old No 3 system up like this as a experiment and was very pleased with ease of feed adjustment on my original system the pipe work was level and every adjustment messed up the other flows . In the photos the Tank isn't online , its full of water ready to go , system is just running as a pump up to grow beds and siphon back .

I have been cycling with a dozen large goldfish I decided to wait for warmer weather before getting perch as its been really cold and didn't want to risk losing them . Ive also had a mountain of work to do at our new place im amazed at how much ive achieved in the time ive been here .

Plenty more to do a big shade house off the end of the shed to cover 3 rows of growbeds is the general plan , I have half the rainfall that im used to and have to pay for water which is a bit of a shock , so AP will be growing as much as possible .

Im going to replace my sump with a round tank as well all my IBCs will become growbeds im thinking I might run a row of 450mm deep growbeds to increase their capacity .

In the background of pic 1 there is another bits and pieces system with a bunch of yabbies and shrimps in it got some plans for that area as well .

Congrats on leaving the chemical world. New setup looks fantastic too. Loads of water collection there, that is so very awesome

Plants doing ok overrun with cucumbers I struggled with these at my last place mildew hammered them all the time .

Finally got some real fish 40 Silver Perch and 10 Murray Cod they could be interesting to help out the Obese Goldies .

Had to throw up some makeshift heat protection three days of 40c plus in a row with a few high 30s each side , highest temp I got to was 31c so it worked but looks hideous .

I will start building my shade house soon .

pretty damn hot indeed . looking forward to seeing you solution

I have discovered that Cucumbers and Cherry Tomatoes need to be on Trellis or hang down the side , no where to wang in new plants .

Or not, that looks spectacular

..
I have tomatoes growing like grapes from the roof of our lean-to greenhouse.
They will naturally grow up to the light, but we just pull them down again and gravity keeps them down and they seem.to say "this ain't all that bad"

Good to see you back up and running ..

Peter

Been busy building a food garden cleared 10000 palms and other weed bushes from this area , carefully as you guessed it that's where the power line , water pipes and septic all are not too many holy smoke moments . On this side of the house next month a shade cloth covered pergola goes in , the high round yard is the veg garden (chook dome system) need a decent fence as we have Kangaroos Rabbits Foxes Snakes A local semi wild pack of Dogs ect ect .

Done a bit more Aquaponics Picked up a second hand system one of Murrays , Set up parallel to my other system not much happening in the plant area I think I got my brassicas in too late and they just sulked went yellow peas and roses hmmmmm going great , new to this area so still learning what does well . Put a couple of Tomatoes in and they are going great , get into October and will have a cleanout and plant up., my water morning temps were getting down into the 6c area so had to do something.

Thought I would share my water heater and thoughts

Started off with black poly scattered around on the ground to the right and behind the systems , have separate 100m on each system with a Aquapro 1050 pump (18w) on each length of pipe on timer . Made a big difference only a little temperature lift each day but consistent and even on the grey days the tank temp didn't drop much at all , most mornings for the last couple of months morning temps have been around 12c and afternoon temps of 16 / 18 occasional 20 / 22 on those days the morning temps were higher so 24hr swings of around 4c .

Now while the heating could be better (more capacity) I think small shifts every day will be much better for fish and plants as with everything in life "Do Less Sooner"

I had to get back to preparing my greenhouse site (Leveling and compacting) seen to the right of pic with the marker pegs , so I dragged the pipe off and set it up on the sheet of black plastic , next winter I will set it up similar but put clear plastic over the top to reduce cold wind losses .

The same pipe /pump combo will be used over summer to shed heat over night I will have to get it up off the ground sort of like a vehicle radiator thinking roll it around a big circle of mesh , have it nearby in the shade still thinking about options .

You're living my dream, a bit of scrub, away from people, and space to play

I gather you were among the fruit blocks at your old place, are you still in the Riverland and just away from them or have you changed regions?

My Grandmother grew up in Lyrup and my Grandfather met her when he was making coffins at the undertakers in Barmera. Still have some family in Loxton

I moved from our farm 700kms away to here , nearest grapes are 500m away with solid mallee scrub all the way in every direction so pretty sheltered . No through road so only get local traffic luckily I kept my front end loader previous two owners were getting on in footy seasons and the garden had got away from them . Ive had some big bonfires this winter.

Here is a interesting one
Needed to get feed before I start a run of work that will have me flat out
I get my feed from the same place I buy fish
While I was there I decided it was a good idea to buy more Cod 16 x 6 to 8 inch fish
As I had stuff laying around at home I could use to knock up a system
Got home put fish in 500L with plenty air overnight

Pulled a 6 mth cycled 40cm deep IBC growbed off the end of one of my systems pulled the plants , shovelled gravel into the trailer shifted to new site gravel straight back in , 700L tank pump up siphon back .
As the gravel was a bit yuck I ran a couple of cycles onto the ground to get rid of some of the mud .
Ran for a couple of hours before putting fish in they wont all stay there but will need to for a couple of days.
Fish were taken out of the 500 tank and put into fresh water so no massive amm surge .

Added a 100L of water from mature system as I probably flushed some of my bacteria away
Have 2kg salt in system

Day three a Nitrite reading , somewhere between 0 and .25
Amm was.25 for first two days and .5 this morning
Ph around 7.5
Fish haven't been interested in feed so have put hardly any in
I havnt had a Nitrite reading since 2012

Ive done this a few times now and had no Amm or Nitrite issue
Be interesting to see what happens .

I have 24 Cod now the plan is to have my 5 x 500L tanks in series so I can grade / spread them ou and grow to a good size

So jealous of your place. Where I’m at I get so much rain that I grow moss instead of grass and I’m surrounded by tall evergreens so no direct sun ever. That being said though, I’m still going to see what kind of system I can put in come spring. You are an inspiration with how much you get done. I hope your new system works out well for you.

Been a bit quite AP wise here have a small two bed system going driven by 11 Murray Cod Picked the first ripe tomatoes this morning , plants have got away from me but heaps of tomatoes coming on ( Pic shows the two beds ) Bed on right has flow delivered via the blue barrel radial filter , Bed on left has water delivered straight from pump so fish solids into the gravel as usual .

As usual I'm always experimenting not sure if I'm imagining bed on the left looks greener , both beds have set plenty of fruit .

Plants got away from me training and pruning as ive been injured and have resisted climbing for obvious reasons

The Out side Green system is running mainly on residual nutrient (shut outdoor systems down through the winter as I lost fish to white spot ) it has a couple of Golden Perch and a bunch of yabbies in it. Remarkable the growth , the tomatoes went nuts I ended up hacking them off I had a huge jungle but no flowers . Starting to set a few fruits now . Yellow capsicums almost ready to start picking , and of course Mrs Terras striking all sorts of garden plants .

I held off restocking as I fell off my M/Cycle on a outback road , broke ribs , punctured lung , pranged up shoulder , foot ect ect . That was October long weekend still have trouble with left arm / hand , and I really want to shift the whole lot and major redesign / build on the site prepared (second Pic)

I picked up 20 orchid house roof trusses and a mountain of pipe and hardwood timber so I'm building a full length greenhouse parallel to the shed when I'm fit enough . About half will be AP the rest gives me somewhere to park my tractor under cover .

I was injured on a fund raising ride for Downs Syndrome pretty neat event , idea is to get an old bike rebuild it interact online with others doing the same raise money ride and camp at a remote location buying fuel and food from the small businesses along the way so helps a lot of people . Gives the riders from the city an opportunity to camp , have bonfires , drink too much if they are inclined and tell lies ect ect great weekend for all .

Couple links if anyones interested official website and adventure riders build thread which covers 3 of the 8 yrs its been running.

http://www.scrapheapadventureride.com.au/

http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/a ... d.1021340/

Nice starter system for ya and tomatoes looking good. Glad you gave the fish a toy. What's an SLO. Keep the faith.