Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah, real easy...had a bobcat in to do the clearing/levelling for the shed, quoted 1/2 day.. In summer...He couldn't get deeper than 100mm, hadn't finished at the end of the day, poured down that night, couldn't get the bobcat out the next day cos it was bogged 5 minutes after he started it up. Lost 3 days work cos of this soil. Funny.
No gold in this soil either...just blood, sweat and more sweat.

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Skeg In The Hills.

Ph 8 amm 1 rite 0.5 rate 20.
Salted to 1ppt.
Added supplementary air.
Found the slo was raised off the bottom and wasn't lifting the floor waste, put a wooden support across it to weigh it down and.....
Moved 12ish fish into their new home. 3000 litres of pea soup...
Really noticed the sediment from the tank in the filter once the fish were in and stirring up the bottom, good to see.
Frosts are hitting the transplanted pak choi leaves, no seedlings have appeared yet either, might need to get some seedlings to green up the barren beds while I wait.
Hope the trout get over today's scare, still haven't had a death yet and don't want one either.
Really impressed with my 4 month immature systems winter plant growth especially when it's only supposed to take off after a year.
Photos soon.

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Skeg In The Hills.

Time for a brief update.
Stage 2 up an running, been ironing out a few of the minor issues and now ticking away nicely
Moved some rainbows to the larger system couple of weeks ago and the water has just about cleared up and the fish are back on the bite again. Found ph in the sml sys low because the fish stopped feeding, bag of shell grit in the return line and the next day all good again
I've put a load of seedlings into the new beds the last week and have been transplanting from other sys too. Had some cold mornings and I think frost affected some of the transplanted bok choi, still tastes good though. Using the lettuce daily, and see some broccoli heads forming. The days are getting longer so looking forward to the system cranking up.
Haven't spent as much time at the system and am looking forward to tidying up the area due to my ban however I have snuck in a few hours excuse the mess...
I think that's about it.
Yep.

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Skeg In The Hills.

A quick reminder of what the area used to look like 4 months ago.

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Skeg In The Hills.

We had an 8hr power outage yesterday, plugged in the battery back up air compressor the night before and happy to say all fish happy and hungry. I did however forget about the plants... Empty gb's for 7 hours. Fortunately it wasn't too hot and they survived, not that they are doing much yet in the new system, but are still mostly green...
Next time I'll close the hole in the stand pipe too.
Slyly adding a couple more gb's for tomatoes and I'm keen to try an earthen bed of sorts, small scale.
I wanted to start transplanting the plants from the 1st bed so I could remove it and use the media but the plants are going so well and the broccoli has some good sized heads on it so I'm reluctant to, moved some beetroot but had to cut off all the older leaves as they wilted badly for a few days, new growth is strong and happy.
Off subject, I've had the best mandarins and orange season this year from the trees, minimal fruit fly and heaps of fruit, last year we had hardly anything and what there was was full of fly, interested to see how the stone fruit go come spring.

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Skeg In The Hills.

You have transformed your place, Skeggley, and it looks great.

I don't think the plants or GBs will suffer if the GBs remain drained for several hours, or even overnight, since they retain a lot of moisture. I think the procedure of draining and leaving drained for a period, thus halting the normal cycle, is used as a system temperature control measure in some situations.

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∞ ∞ PLJ's Big Concrete Tank System ∞ ∞
∞ ∞ ∞ The 'Puddle' ∞ ∞ ∞

looking good Skeggley good growth in the plants m8

Hows the other beds coming along?

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current system build
IBC system retired
Barrels&IBC in the greenhouse system retired

Thanks lads, cant see the end of this project though and its hard sneaking time into the AP now its up and chugging along. Feeding 7mm and the trout are always up for a bite to eat as if its their last... Coming on in size too, not sure how I'm going catch the buggers when the time comes though.
New gb's shrouded in secrecy.

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Skeg In The Hills.

Soooo snuck in some work on the weekend.
It been raining on and off for the last couple of weeks, had to drain water out of the system which has me thinking about water storage for the summer, not sure about how much water will evaporate during the summer but I'm thinking an ibc's should come close to covering it, that's 25% of the average volume of the system.
Had our first feed of our broccoli the other night, would have tasted a lot nicer if I didn't fish out a steamed caterpillar mid feed...
Bought dipel today...
Slowly clearing the original gb. Transplanted most of the beetroot, half the leaks ,radishes and the tomato plants, found I need to cut the beets back to new growth for best results.
All the plants in the new system are not going great but looking at the 1st sys gb's starting photos they are on par so im not concerned. The spinach seedlings have carked it so more room for spring crops. I also transplanted about 100l of cracked gravel....
Fish still eating well and a couple are getting quite big.
That's about it..... For now.

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Skeg In The Hills.

Couple more.

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Skeg In The Hills.

looking good Skeggley you mustnt be to far from me i had a second go with the fish in my ibc but after 5 days they died so go some koi in mine now see how long they last not sure whats going on with the fish the water is fine nice and clear and all levels are good. anyway the plants are growing fine but the lettuce and bok choy all went to flower before doing any thing lol.

Hey Frank, I know I've been lucky on the fish front, I put it down to being conservative, cautious with a pinch of paranoia, not sure what I'd have done had I lost my fish, I mean after all, the fish are half of the harvest and most the fun (Not much fun feeding the plants and watching them grow eh...). Good to hear you keep getting back on the horse.
Looking at your thread it seems you've done everything right, certainly nothing different to me except the ibc. There was another Perthite who was losing all her fish too, lost some faith in ap too judging by her lack of recent posting. All water parameters were good, better than mine, yet...
Let me know the outcome with the koi, good luck.

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Skeg In The Hills.

And hence why I recommend 'Cream of Broccoli' soup.

So I accidentally decided to test my oxygen parameters by not testing my new second hand timer and in doing so got my first feed of ap fish...
Yesterday I decided to remove the fish from the old system into the larger one, a bit caused by the water frothing after adding egg shells to the media to try and buffer the ph which continues to decline. Then I thought it would be a good idea to use two timers, one on each system. fish set 15/45 with additional aeration, the other fishless at 15/105 as an experiment. In my infinite wisdom I used the untested timer on the fish system and didn't check, I blame CUB...
Yep went out this morn and checked the fish as usual and hit panic mode...
Cut to the chase, two dead on the bottom and another barely swimming on the bottom, first thought was the egg shells and I started draining before I realised the air was off. Sure enough timer fail. Plugged pump into power then I fished the two off the bottom and held the other in the water flow for 20mins until it had the strength to swim on its own..
The dead trout had clear eyes so they were not long dead so they were probably eatable.
Phew.
What I have learnt;
Double check operation whenever changes are made.
I'm lucky i only have 25 trout in the tank so safer to under stock than over stock.
Fish are a lot easier to catch when they are dead.
The cook likes the taste of the trout. and has given the thumbs up to the ap.
And that there are heaps of bones in trout...

I also noticed olive pips (ft is under an olive tree) in the guts of both fish and am concerned that it may cause issues in the future with the others???

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Skeg In The Hills.