Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I bought mine from the bloke at lewiston.

Depends how often you come down to the big smoke I reckon.

If you buy from interstate they may be able to courier them to you up on the river.

Sometimes the interstate suppliers have deals on shipping.

Congrats. Is the mains water from a well? First fish! This is such an exciting time.

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So the nitrites did drop to zero. So I ordered my silverperch from Live Fish. Should be here in a day or two.

However in preparation for the fish coming, I topped up the water level in the sump as it was down a bit. Put in 300litres of chlorine free mains water which is what I've been using all along. Checked the water this morning & the ammonia levels have come up to 0.5 . it was at zero.

Any need for concern? The only other thing I've done is brush off the inside of the tank with a brush as the green algae was building up.

I have fish! Odered 50 silver perch from Live fish in Qld, Arrived safely & after a week still no deaths.

In previous post I mentioned ammonia was up but it came down again by itself & everything was stable again. I presume it was because I topped up the water level.


All is good except that this morning I tested the water & the nitrates are down to zero! They have been at 20 all the way up to now. So it has to be something to do with adding the pellets I guess. Are the bacteria using the nitrates to break down the pellets? I can see on the bottom of fishtank in the middle where the water moving drops any uneaten pellets in to one area. Please advise me ,but I think I am overfeading these babies.

Don't be concerned about your nitrates being at zero. The plants probably just kicked in and started to use them. Many systems run without any detectable nitrates because the plants use them the first chance they get. You should remove any uneaten pellets and you probably are overfeeding if you have these on the bottom of the tank. Keep a watch on how your plants look and learn to see problems like deficiencies and diseases.

The ammonia may have gone up because you scraped the sides of the tank. This could be either because the algae died and started to break down or the organisms on the side of the tank were helping with processing ammonia. As your system ages it will get a bit more durable and little things like this won't matter as much.

Nice going piney, it would be great to get an update and some pictures.

So everything is ticking over well. Still no deaths. Need to find time to start the wicking bed.

Meanwhile I am planning a shadehouse / greenhouse. I have always thought that I would build a greenhouse with shadecloth over the top in summer. But am wondering if I need a greenhouse at all. My plants this winter have survived well so far. Would they do even better with one?

There is no doubt I need shade cloth in summer. We have recorded several days of 45 degrees each summer recently.

I am thinking a simple shedlike design but covered in shadecloth/plastic.

Those of you in South Australia what are your thoughts regarding the necessity of a greenhouse please.

I'm in the design stage of my shadehouse. Came up up with the idea of permapine posts & trusses. However it occurred to me that permapine in the roof structure may not be recommended as far as being poisoness to the fish. Is this correct. I could use normal pine but I dont think the lifespan would be very long.

Hi Piney, I'll definitely be looking at some sort of shading, I have the IBC FT clad in corrugated iron with a EPS lid. the FT and GB's will be in full sun from midday onwards as it orients west and is shaded from the east by the shed. I would imagine it will get very hot otherwise. I plan on setting up some battens from the shed to an espaleir top rail thats about 4m from the shed and then using some 50% or 75% shade cloth, not sure which yet.

I do have a polycarb greenhouse that I've built and used the first time this year, mainly to get an early jump on germinating seed, esp heritage tomato/pumpkin etc that would not outside currently, that being said if you have a nice spot inside on a windowsill you could achieve the same thing. Over summer it's likely I'll not have anything in the poly house as it will be too bloody hot even if covered by shade cloth and vents/doors open.

Thanks Graf. Does anyone know wether the permapine timber is safe or not?