Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

pretty happy with things on the growth side. Picking lettuce every day, some tommies and pumpkins have set fruit, zuchs fruit is very small, they are at the end of the nute line.
In phase two, we will use a stone filled elevated blue barrel as our biofilter then drain to those 3 150mm stormies. These will drain to the bathtub which will be a pond that I may place some water lilies in. (Might sneak a turtle in there if i can do it quietly.) I finally understand how to maintain internal tank volume using pipe in pipe. It takes a while!

Fishwise, may have made an error yesterday. Felt sorry for the remaining fish from the original hobby system. They were in one of the 400lt sumps that was rarely more than half full. Netted most of them into the big tank. They were in rude good health, just not growing. It seems they have scared the crap out of the fingerlings in there bc no food got eaten today. Will let things settle for a day or so. No little floaters, so fingers crossed. Weather expected to ramp up heat wise, so they will be hungry in a couple days. See how we go.

TH, u guys are very close so keep at it. It really happens pretty quick once ur cycled if u have a reasonable fishload.
Lungy, those pumpkins get to about twice fist size normally for me in the ground. I would expect these early ones to be a bit smaller til my system matures.
I have been brushing a chook feather (insert kinky gag here...) on the tommie flowers for a couple days. It seems to be working, they are all swelling where the flower joins the stem. Previously they had sat there for a week doing nothing.

Cheers looking good TT.

TT my brother & I are trying to get the pipe in pipe method happenning without success. Could you please provide details and advise. Need to make a decision for next step. The thing is erratic at best. f

Looking good TT

All the hard work is starting ot pay off - well done TT. How did the $4000 lettuce taste

vb, it tasted fine. Leaf lettuce seem to have a bit more flavour and less watery crunch compared to hearting lettuce like iceberg. Icebergs have almost zero nutritional value and I have never had much success with growing them.
funku, my understanding of constant fish tank height is:

external standpipe siliconed snugly inside exit point from tank.Crenellations or holes at the base of this as per normal standpipe.
internal standpipe needs to have a waterproof base between it and the external standpipe. A bit easier in my case bc I just sit this on the bath tub exit, which I then silicone.
Then cut a v at the top of this inner pipe, the base of the v being ur max water height.
Water enters at the base of the external pipe, goes up b/n it and the internal pipe, flowing over the v of the internal pipe. Assuming this is the only point water can escape, the base of that v is ur max water height.

I am sure Joel and others have explained it much better. For me it should be fairly easy bc the bathtub plug hole base gives me something to stand both pipes on, just needs lotsa silicone. Hope this helps.

Your system is looking good!

nice work TT. Am impressed with the growth. Can you please do a ph and nitrate reading for us?

Cheers Dan.
The silver perch fingerlings I got 3 months ago are off their tucker at the moment, which is a bit of a concern. I put 6 larger silvers in the same tank on christmas day, from my trial system and it seems to have them spooked. The larger ones have settled straight in and rise to the pellets but the small ones won't so i have been giving them a couple handfuls of sinking starter crumble which i hope they are eating. Apart from that things are moving along pretty well.

Monya:
water this morning 18C, zero ammo, zero nitrite and less than 5 parts nitrate. pH is 7.4 which is a pinch lower than it has been past 3 months, (uneaten food in the big tank of a morning might have something to do with that.) I buffered with 3kg of shell grit in one of the sumps when i commissioned the system, but i have wondered whether the grow media has had a pH buffering effect as well.

okay. Our plants aren't looking great, the system has cycled, but our ph is sky high. Reckon it might be affecting the uptake of nutes.

TT thanks heaps. Will experiment some more. Enjoy the fruits of your creation.
f

You would def have a nute lockout there I reckon Monya. If ur nitrates are high and building but ur plants aren't doing much, that pH needs to come down, then things will go boom growth wise i am tipping.

Wow TT. Very impressed with your growth. Reckon I would have enjoyed a $4000 lettuce too. Our first 4 cherry tomatoes were worth about $750 each I reckon. They were very yummy too!