Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Warmer than average late autum temps are keeping the water temp reasonably high



The rodents are still eating a few things, and we have been unable to get any peas, chard etc started, as they keep eating the seeds
Fortunately, they haven't eaten any of the garlic, so it is all growing nicely.

Garlic, pea and rhubarb recently planted in outside GB#9.



Rats ate 3 more large almost ripe tomatoes last night

A few frosty mornings have cooled the water down quite a bit. The water is quite brown and the Murray Cod just lurks around out of sight at the bottom, only visible with a bright torch at night. I put a few pellets in every few days, but most aren't eaten. I suspect it survives on worms from the GBs and an occasional bug.

I put another 10 garlics into the outside GB#9 yesterday and have removed most of the cucumber and some of the tomato from inside the GH. I'll put some chard in as soon as we can get some seedlings started without them being eaten by rodents.

Mild weather for most of June so far



I've been picking a few more tomatoes once htey have a hint of red on them, and pulled most of the plants out, along with all the cucmber vine, leaving lots of space for some new seedlings. I've put in a few red cabbages, and will put more in soon, along with lots of celery.

How is this Winter comparing to last year temperatures and precipitation? Bummer about the rodents munching seeds.

Similar temps to last June so far, although it did get cold in the last week of the month last year. Very dry so far this year, only 12mm so far, but last June was very wet, with over 200mm.

Thank you Gunagulla. I've got a lot of curiosity

Tagging in to this thread for future updates, heading over to the system 2 thread to see what I can learn there...

So far I've decided I need to add mufflers for my air pumps. I had built a PVC manifold for air pumps previously just to equalize the pressure to take out some of the ups and downs from the pumps, but after skimming through this I need to try the muffler idea to quiet them down a bit! My wife complained that the greenhouse isn't quiet/peaceful... I have two large air pumps running plus the water cascading through drains, so if I could quiet the air pumps down it would probably make a big difference.

They made a huge difference to the overall noise level in and around the FTs with the noisy pumps, and now I'm using Hailea V-60s, I can barely hear them running.

I assume the Murray Cod is still in the FT somewhere, I havent seen it for ages, but throw a few grams of pellets in every day or 3. The water went quite dark brown a couple of months ago, perhaps accumulated staining from pellets and Seasol.

Doesn't look too bad Gordon. I'm kind of jealous of those lows that are still above freezing

Cheers

The above average warm winter weather is continuing, so the water temp has been reasonable.
Still only the one Murray Cod in the FT, which I spotted by torchlight recently, as I haven't gotten around to transferring any of the trout into this system yet. A few cabbage and chard seedlings aren't growing very quickly, no doubt due to the lack of fish poo. I've been harvesting another great crop of tumeric, which my wife has been selling at the weekly market, and we've eaten some too.

The water is still very dark coloured, not sure why it went like that a few months ago, but I'll drain some out into a tank to use on the orchard and replace with some fresh water I thihnk.

Howdy Gunagulla.
I am researching circulation pumps and know you have an external pump on your big tank. If you wouldn't mind going back a ways, could you point me too the page that discusses the pump you have? I'm also looking at wave makers, but most seem too small and expensive for our 2600 gallon tank. Are you satisfied with the setup you did?
How do you keep the smaller fish out of the pump inlet. Is it loud, being external?
Thank you so much.
Brian

I've got a (submerged in the ST) Waveline DC-10000 as the water pump on this system, and an externally mounted Waveline DC-6000 as the circulation pump on the large system. They are both very quiet, and can barely be heard. I'm very happy with their performance and low power usage. Jebao make similar pumps, at slightly less cost, last I checked.
I have a 40mm poly elbow as the intake, and have a few zip ties across the opening to keep the small fish out. I just have 1 X 40mm elbow on the outlet now, rather than the 2 X 25mm arrangement in the pics.

See here for pics: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=24153&start=150#p510487

Thank you so much. You are an aquaponics rock star. The Zip-ties are a fantastic idea as well. I had dowels in the overflow on my 10,000 liters tank, which looked really cool, but the wood didn't last long. Now I need to figure a way to mount the pump, as well as where to mount it in my irregular shape tank. I don't think I can direct the flow in any direction without having dead spots in the corners, but it has to be better that it was with flow only from the main pump.
Brian