Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've just realised that my thread doesn't record my fish loss, so I'll add it now. About 90 SP died over a period of about 30 hours. This is recorded in the fish forum. Having spoken to the fish breeder, Gwen, she thinks it was caused by not enough DO in the system. We turned off our pump and aerators for a few hours overnight. Now we know we should have left the aerators on.

Now I can answer some comments.

Thank you, Monya and VB.

Joel, apart from losing the fish - and that was shameful and sad, I feel we gained a lot from losing those fish. It made me learn more about the system and not just rely on coming here to have problems solved. As great as that is, I must have some personal responsibility for my fish. Although AP is a simple system when it's up and running, I know now that there are layers of complexity that I need to know about. I believe that this fish loss will lead the way to a better system for us. So all is not lost at all.

Les, I'm not sure what fish Gwen has at the moment. She doesn't have barra, but I only saw her holding tanks and not the dams. She's been in the fish industry for about 30 years, advises the surrounding councils on aquaculture and supplies Wivenhoe and Somerset dams with fish. She's one talented woman.

One of the things Gwen told us was to increase the water temp in our tank. She said if we can get the water to a consistent temp of 26C, the fish will grow at almost twice the rate. H is rigging up a passive solar heater on the roof this week with black plastic pipes. Our water temp now is 13 at night and 15 during the day.

I planted out my second lot of tomatoes - Mortgage Lifters. I pulled one of the asparagus out the other day to see the root system. It's not too bad, and is aligned pretty much with what's happening up top. I still have two plants in and I'll let them grow.

forest heat exchangers are the talk of much topics last inter and again now

main concern with a flow through system is that we want to be sure that nothing from the plastic pipe will leach through.

copper wopuld be ideal, but is not so good for the fishies in a closed loop.

thanks steve. I'll look for those.

Yep - I think it is about time we tackled the heating problem again, my GH is a help but no way can I get the water temp up to ~25c without external assistance

about start a water heating thread...

Waiting....waiting.

I discovered this cucumber holding on for dear life near the celery today.

looking very nice Forest

Our celery is tiny compared to yours but I've never even tried to grow it before so I don't know how long it takes in NQ. Our leeks are taking a long time too. Both have steady growth, but sloooow.

jaymie, what's the temperature of your fish tank water up there? It's 13 here, gets up to 15 during the day.

I’m surprised how cold your water is. Mine is about the same & I’m in SW Victoria

Have you got a cover over your GH yet David?

Forest - are your silvers feeding at 13? 15?

Forest, I broke my thermometer the other day and I haven't got a new one yet, so I have no idea what the water temps are, except when you stick your hand in you say "oeeoooeehh that's cold!"

A bit like the way you test your nutrient levels Jaymie - stick your nose in and say pwoo that stinks

rofl.