Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I love it how they shift the sand/gravel around. One of my tilapia tanks was fine one day, the next all the gravel was over one end of the tank, then the next there was a giant mound in the middle...

good that you know where the ph was coming from now

way to go Tony, must be nice to be making some progress

Yes,
I am now eagle-eyed, watching for signs of females ready to drop eggs and for those who are carrying.
I over fed them all a couple of nights ago, so am letting the Ammonia/Nitirtes/Nitrates settle back to Zero before feeding more. The fry get a mushed up flake of Fish Food but everything else can wait.

Has anyone used the uneaten seeds & seed shells from aviary bird feeders to feed their fish?

I tried soaking the seeds (around 30% seed, the rest shells and partly eaten seed) in a glass of water for 2 days then put it in the aquarium. The seed swelled up a lot (at least double the dry volume) and absorbed a lot of water.

The following morning, there was no evidence of it ever being in the aquarium.

Anyone else tried this?
My Bro in Law has aviaries as does my wife, so apart from feeding some to the chickens, I have a lot of it available for feeding fish.

Could be a good supplement for my fish meal ice blocks, or another ingredient in them.

HeyTony, Is your other pond clear with the Iris in?

Excellent job..

May there be many more sounds of the patter of tiny fish tails splishing and splashing!

Go for it Tony!

You're not off the hook on that one yet Faye

It is as green as grass and the pH is >8.8 at last check.
I will test again and post on that thread.

The Water Chestnut is growing well in that pond too.
I lost the timer, on that pond, sometime this week and nearly lost my climbing beans. I sorted out another timer tonight and it is running again, so will need to check on the timers more often.

Tony

careful with the seed and stuff like it. If the fish can't digest it fast enough or at all it may swell and build up in there gut causing bloat.

I would trial it for a while see what happens.

Several other females are carrying fry. one or 2 have spat the fry and we collected them into floating fry cages. 30+ small fry in a fry cage. 12 of the 18 first lot of fry have survived at this time in their own fry cage.

System changes:
As those who came to my place last month will recall, I had 2 GBs (one with 3 half drums and the other, 4 half drums) and a 1KL pond with a single pump.
I have added another 3 half drum GB (C/W washed hydrotron and standpipes) and a 50W "kiddy pool" filter/pump (minus filter), drawing from the 5KL fish pond. The sump pump is in the 1KL pond (being used as a sump), returning the water to the big fish pond.

As the water temp here is around 18°C, I have added 50M of 40mm polythene fipe as a heater (on the roof) and connected it to the return to the big pond.

No time to test nutrients today, but as the fish population is still 5 comets and 1 Tilapia, I doubt that nutrients will 'peak' any time soon.

Photos tomorrow, perhaps.

goin' off Tony.
Gee 18 huh, it would have been interesting to see
what max you got to this year without heating.
Though I understand.

Tony .. given the correct breeding conditions .. (whih you have!)

you are on the base of an exponential population curve!



BTW .. they taste wonderful pan size!

Johnnie,
The 2 largest males you gave me are not interested in the females, but they will be the first on the plate Hmmmmm

Still haven't taken any pix, perhaps tomorrow.

OK, Here are the latest pix of my system.

More of the same.
The roof is relatively new. They installed smoked sun tuff sheet instead of clear. Pi$$ed me off when I saw it. Despite me saying "clear", the salesman did not write it into the contract, and they didn't say "smoked" in it either.
I am installing Clear sheets between the smoked ones to improve light transfer.

Thermal transfer enough to pull the return water up to the roof alone Tony or do you have a small pump running?