Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Oops, I missed this the first time around! Yup, the gudgeons are natives and I put them in the sump - I haven't seen them for a while, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything! There were a few times where I was looking right at one, and then my eyes refocussed and it disappeared into the background without actually moving. Hopefully they're just staying out of sight.


I certainly hope so! The white cloud minnows in one of our ponds are breeding like mad.


Heh, thanks! Future ones will be in landscape mode.

Nice one Mel . whoever reads the thread will get encouraged .

I really love your tank . looks fabulous . how is it performing ? on the whole ! leaks , quality , maintenance!

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You are referring to old system ? I don't find a link ! can you please help



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Thanks Sri! The tank is doing well; no leaks since I put a lot of marine sealant on the side seam. It's not a convenient shape for aquaponics though, and the reinforcing bars across the middle are seriously annoying when you're trying to catch fish. I needed to get one this shape to fit everything into the available room, but round is much easier to work with.


My teeny test system, yes! Most of the posts to do with it are here: viewtopic.php?f=45&t=26859

I disassembled it and moved all the fish, media, and plants into this system a little while back.

Brief system overview:



And a quick peek at the fish:

I managed to catch some goldfish out of the aquaponics today to move them back into the pond! Two down, eight or nine to go...



Time to try to grow potatoes:



And the first harvest out of the big system, kale for my husband's dinner! (No way am I eating that stuff. )

Great videos Mel, so much easier to understand than pics alone.

Pete

"Fantastic," I'll say super enviously as we're heading into Winter. The picture of the purple plant is some kind of cabbage? Boy howdy that is vibrant!

Thanks! Yeah, it's sometimes hard to get a proper sense of where everything is in relation to everything else from pictures and/or diagrams.


Yup, apparently kale is also called leaf cabbage sometimes - it doesn't form a head, but it's a brassica all right. This one's red in some lights, dark green in others, and really purple under a camera flash! My husband looooves it, I - er - don't. And now that dinner is over I can report that he really really likes this variety, for all the reasons that I dislike kale (crisp/crunchy texture, strong flavour), so it will continue to be his and his alone.

I went and looked again on Kale and Kidney stones http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/kale-sheds-bum-rap-on-kidney-stones/ I know it's just one link, so there's that. I can't recall if you shouldn't eat it for med interactions or like you just wrote, "you don't really like it? " We have another issue which is, Nell my wife takes Coumadin and Kale is pretty high on the clotting list. In looking just now thanks to that vibrant photo I see that spinach is way lower in vitamin K than Kale for her that's good. I'm desperately looking for a way to put Kale and Spinach in the AP for Winter. Hope, for us seems in short supply these days.

I just don't like it. I have to avoid a huuuge list of foods (mostly vegetables, plus dairy) due to my IBS, but I don't have any med interactions with foods to worry about at the moment. I figure if I'm still managing to eat a decent amount and variety of vegetables I'm doing OK.

*flings confetti* Hooray! Today's water tests show 5ppm nitrates! My plants have food!

Good .to know. is 5 ppm enough for plants ?

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It certainly seems to be, since most of my plants are having a growth spurt! As of day before yesterday it's up to maybe 10ppm, and of course that's just what's left over after the plants have taken what they want.

Today's harvest! Rainbow silverbeet for dinner! Being steamed right now, yum yum



And today's treat for one of the fish! A juvenile grasshopper!



(It's in the middle of the picture sitting on a flower.) I caught it after taking its picture and threw it in the fish tank, thinking that the goldfish might have mouths big enough to eat it but the silvers wouldn't. Boy, was I wrong. >:D I poked it down under the water surface and watched it drift away, waiting for one of the goldfish to notice and go for it, when wham! One of the bigger silvers zipped up from the depths and it was gone. My husband started humming the Jaws theme when I told him. ;D