Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I cleaned the first few tilapia tonight. Didn't think to weigh them, but filleted them like a blue gills, rolled in flour and some herb seasoning and fried them, tastes about like blue gills that way too.



My wife pointed out these tomatoes we're a perfect progression of color and size.


I started reclaiming field from the weeds. I weed whacked it last night, will hit it with the mower tomorrow then pick rocks and mow it again after picking rocks... Then I might manage to get my fence extended tomorrow if all goes well. I will be buying materials for the hoop house next week so need to get the ground and fence ready.

You are a grinder Rob. Always moving forward. Thanks for the update

I'm stretching fence today. I picked rocks, mowed, picked rocks again, mowed again on a lower setting, found more rocks... Now I've moved t posts out from the original north fence and waiting for my wife to be able to help me stretch fence so it will be a little tighter nicer looking this time.

I downloaded a program on my phone to resize pictures which makes it so much nicer to post pictures on here... Instead of having to email the pictures to my work computer then resize them on my computer I just open them in the app and see which dimension is larger click resize and tell it to make whichever dimension was larger 899 and it changes it to be able to upload here and keep the same aspect ratio automatically adjust the other size.

I finished moving t posts and extending the garden fence. And I laid out the plastic I had bought to make low tunnel covers on the ground to fry the weeds seems how the weed mat was not enough to do it on it's own in the garden. So now I am just waiting for Thursday when the next home Depot sale coupon starts so I can get 12 months interest free on my HD card and I will purchase everything except the poly cover. Won't be home next weekend with it being the holiday weekend but will probably start assembling the greenhouse some time that next week.

I started a new thread for the PVC hoop house build. It can be found here... viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29040

I'll back off and try to keep this thread more about the existing greenhouse

I picked up a seed heat mat and some sponge seed starters to try and increase my luck with starting seeds. Not getting anywhere near 100% germination, and then when I do they are weak and don't seem to survive transplanting very well. Hopefully the heat mat will help increase germination rate and the sponge cubes will allow items going in DWC to get transferred without damaging roots trying to pull them out of other medias to place in the DWC.

mash it all together, that what makes it easier and fun to re-read when you are trying to find something. I don't update any social accounts, I go to the specific forum for all the progress shots etc that has documented all the various projects past and in the works....

I have to do all my chores first before I can work in the greenhouse. THEN I can go build my vertical manifold.

Always forward.....

Adam

That was my thought too Adam, trying to keep everything in one place, to keep those who are following along with you instead of sending them to multiple locations, but it seems most people on here don't, they end up with multiple threads so I was kind of torn... Idk maybe a mod can combine the other thread back in to this thread.

A trip to the greenhouse tonight reminds me of a childhood cartoon.... Pepper: what are we going to do today, Brain? Tomato: What we do every day... TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD...



Some trimmings before the picture above..

I spent a couple hours today cutting back tomato plants in the greenhouse. They were so thick I couldn't see the tomatoes when they were ripe. I cut them way way back so I can actually get light in the greenhouse. Hopefully they will still set fruit, worst case I will let some suckers grow if the plants that are left don't set more fruit.

I think my wheelbarrow is 10cu ft and it's overflowing with plants I cut out.

They're Pepper, they're Pepper and the Tom...Tom...Tom....Tom

(probably going to get busted for incorrect usage of a contraction.....)

Adam

Today's kids will never know what they are missing... actually I think Animaniacs is available on netflix so you might be able to watch Pinky & the Brain still...

Now I am going to have the Animaniacs song running through my head off/on today...

They're tiny, they're toony, they're all a little looney.........they're invading your TV......

Dot is cute and yakko yaks.

I'm on to my next fish experiment. Just went to our local "fish days" and picked up 25 channel catfish that I placed in the 200 gal ibc in the greenhouse. They are about 3 to 5 inches right now. They will get moved to the larger 330 gal ibc once I clean the tilapia out of it.

Then I got 24 (they shorted me one) hybrid bluegills that I placed in a 75 gallon aquarium I'm the house in my fish room.

I wanted to do bluegills and perch to see how they would do in AP but my wife convinced me that I should do bigger fish so it's not so much work cleaning them and I get a bigger filet... I decided not to do the rainbow trout this winter because I'm not a huge fan of picking the meat off the bones, I want to try something I'm used to cleaning and eat them the way I'm used to. I also decided I want something that is going to hold up to all of our seasons so I'm not on a time table to clean them... So I will see how the catfish turn out in the next year or so, and if they turn out good then I may stop the tilapia too... I'll probably keep my breeders around and hatch tilapia in the spring again just in case I do want to raise tilapia again next year, but if the channel cats work out well then I think next fall or winter if I harvest the last of them I will probably remove my IBC tanks out of the greenhouse and build a bigger plywood tank out there. I just measured, the area the two IBC tanks are sitting now takes up about 10ft x 5ft area, and is about 53" tall, so I could build about 1650 gallon plywood tank in that area, which would make it so I could raise a lot more catfish if that's what I decide I like to raise best...

Just for my own reference since I probably won't remember in a few days... I started cucumber (picklebush), peas, brussel sprouts, Swiss chard, kale, spinach, romaine, Bibb, black seeded Sampson, red lettuce, iceberg lettuce, mesclun mix lettuce, thyme, parsley, chives, oregano, dill, rosemary, cilantro, and basil seeds yesterday 9/15/17 to hopefully get them established I'm the greenhouse before it gets too cold... It's all an experiment, so we will see how it goes and I'll know better one way or the other next year...