Bigdaddy's DIY

[bigdaddy]

Hi Crusty,

Not an odd question, but the way I answer it may seem odd.
I am using 3mm Growbest floating barra pellets ATM and would feed a good handful (now once a day) to the teen agers and just over a 3 finger pinch to the babies twice to three times a day.

Today the barra hatchery guys are getting some 9mm floating barra pellets in for me, so I'll pick them up on Monday,then I can try and feed the teen agers more,starting off very gently,and maybe ease the babies onto them ASAP.As always I'm open for suggestions,if I'm doing it wrong.

I have about 20 kilos of Hydrated lime (Calcium Hydroxide) I got from Bunnings, a couple of moths ago,I found in my 500 litre fish tank that a level desert spoon of that brings the pH up 2 points.

Could I use that? but I would not like to bring the pH much over 6.9 or 7.0 max for the sake of the plants.

Cheers.

[Ravnis]

Calcium hydroxide will work and add calcium for your plants. Some plants, especially fruiting plants, seem to suck it out big time. Just be careful not to add too much at a time, but what you said should work well. Others have used shell grit in the past and let it dissolve in the water to buffer the ph.

I just found a source this week of oyster shell grit and added a few handfuls to my indoor system, but did not yet see a change in the ph yet. I wound up using the calcium hydroxide. to try to get it back up to 6.2-6.4 range. The aquarium folks will say add it to water, mix it and let it settle. Then pour off the top portion of the water. This is supposed to reduce impurities. It will raise alkalinity that way, but does not change ph as much.

[bigdaddy]

Thanks for that Ravnis,

I am putting egg shells around the perimeter of my barra grow bed,just when we use some,for two reasons 1 to try and stop our stink'n snails and slugs come onto the veges,I tend to share a lot of veges with the snails. And to try and eventually buffer the pH back up,I would think Your crushed oyster shell would be superior,but like you say it will take time to buffer your system up.I am also going to do what DaveOponic suggests with the charcoal and put that around the edge and see if that stops the slugs.

I didn't think about mixing up the lime in a bucket and letting it settle,I just sprinkled it in under the draining water to the fish tank,and yes I found about a day after that it tended to settle around the edge of my air discs, on the bottom of my tank. I tried what you suggested today,twice in the bucket then with the remainder of sediment down the bottom I put into my grow bed next to the standpipe,I will test in the morning.Thanks for the tips.

Cheers.

[Ravnis]

I found a product called sluggo here in the US for snails. It is iron phosphate. It got rid of my snail problem quick. It won't hurt the fish and actually adds iron to the water for the plants. Just be careful not to go overboard with it as a high concentration may kill worms in the system. There is probably an Iron phosphate version in your area at a nursery type store.

[bigdaddy]

Hi Ranis,

Thanks for that info I'll follow that up this week.

Hi everyone,

Bigdaddy got busy today and harvested his trout,

Good sizes for only a few months grow out,ranging from 250 grams to 480 grams.

Now gutted,vacuum packed and in the freezer.

Cheers.

[GaryD]

Hi BD,

Great result! It's always very satisfying when you harvest your own clean fresh food.......particularly when it's fish.

Gary

[bigdaddy]

Hi everyone,

Have a look at Bigdaddy's Taj Mahal.

I went out to K mart on the weekend and spent $69.00 and got me an inexpensive,car cover,I thought I'd give it a try at keeping the wind of my grow bed to try and keep a bit of heat in the fish tank,the other thing I would like it to do is to keep those pesty,white cabbage moths away from laying caterpillars on my grow bed.

I would be adding some shade cloth to all sides so we can open it up in the summer,without the bugs coming in, if it is successful.

We'll see how it turns out.

Photo's

1. I managed to rearrange a side wall and put it right in front of the grow bed going right across the enclosure,I can also push it from right to left to open up the stair well.

2. View from the pergola,with a side rolled up.It opens it up quite nicely,I think.

3. View from the other side of the back yard near my trout grow bed.looking towards the barra bed.

Cheers.

[bigdaddy]

Hi everyone,

Today I added back the trout 500 litre fish tank to my barramundi system

I ran another suckerupper in this tank and attached an external Home made skimmer in a similar position to the first barra tank.I ran 50mm DWV pipe back to the swirl separator and added another inlet to the separator.

I cut the end off the drain back to tank and added a tee or should of used elbow but ran out.To the second tank.

Then I added a 25mm ball valve to the first drain into the first tank to adjust flow to the end tank,all is working well and draining back to separator which drains into a sump ATM.I will later turn the sump into a moving bed bio filter as well.

Babies are in their new tank to which I added an air disc and heater.They are loving it especially the return of the drain from the grow bed they play under that with delight.

I just have to wait for the water quality to even out and things to settle a bit ,but all is well in bigaddy's system.

I will post photo's later,no time ATM.

Cheers.

[bigdaddy]

Hi folks,

Had fish for dinner tonight,took 5 vacuum packed trout out of freezer this morning,broke the seal tonight and 1/4 filled the kitchen sink with water,added rock salt until water was totally saturated and put the fish whole into the water.I cleaned them all,took of all the extra frozen blood took off the salt slime on the skin,and washed inside and out.

Wrapped each trout up in alfoil added nothing tonight,next time I will go the full Monty,wrapped each fish up ,lit up the barbie put a shallow roasting rack on the hotplate,all 5 trout onto roasting rack,hood down at 180 degrees,15-20 mins later barbie at 250,took fish out,served up on plates with a fresh garden salad and home made potato salad with home grown parsley and chives.

see attachment.

Cheers.

[Crusty]

I ran another suckerupper in this tank and attached an external Home made skimmer in a similar position to the first barra tank.I ran 50mm DWV pipe back to the swirl separator and added another inlet to the separator.

Hi BD

I look forward to seeing it mate.

[bigdaddy]

Hi everyone,

Woke up this morning and went out the back,to do the morning constitution,check on the fish,put my nose in the separator and to my surprise one baby barra was swimming around,netting him and put him back with the others put one 40mm DWV sink waste drain into the skimmer box outlet,now any one that wants to get sucked up the suckerupper can do and get stuck in the skimmer box.Easier to check.

Here are some photo's of my end of weeks work.

Cheers.

[GaryD]

Hi BD,

If you're not careful there, mate, you'll be at risk of some serious fish production soon.

It's looking good.

Gary

[chainsaw]

Next expense BD, bird netting. When I feed my barra now some leap clean out of the water, even before I have let go of the food. IMO I think you should lower the water level abit, maybe 100-150 from the top. My other systems have struggled to get the Nitrates up for good plant growth, so have lowered water level to half, will keep close watch on temps and Ammonia etc and see what happens. (Not through lack of fish or feed).

[bigdaddy]

Hi everyone,

Finally found my usb cable, left it in my case.

It's been a while,

All winter plants out summer plants in,Kept the strawberry the spinach had overgrown all over the top,it will survive,got most of these sad looking plants from bunnings I was late I know,that's why I got these,would of tryed growing them from seed if I was more organised and had time.

1000 litres of fish tanks 500 litres fish tank holding 19 300 mm plus barra,1 500 litre fish tank holding 38 125 mm plus barra,going through a swirl filter, sump, then, 1000 litres of grow bed.

The other grow bed is just circulating with no fish in it but some seasol and occasional powerfeed.(the old trout system.)

Picture 4

Side view of barra grow bed with a gerzillion tomatoes,t he old strawberry bush, chilli, curry, parsley, chives, basil, water melon and rock melon.

Picture 3.

End view of barra grow bed.

Picture 2,

The old trout system grow bed, with 1 sad but OK old silver beet, chives, strawberries, tomatoes, tomatoes, & tomatoes.

Picture 1.

Another picture of the old trout system grow bed, just circulating with seasol and occasional powerfeed.ATM.

[GaryD]

Hi BD,

It's obviously been a good growing season for you. Are you going to do trout and barra again this year?

Gary

[bigdaddy]

Hi Gary,

Yes I do intend to do trout and barra,This time trout only from early March to end September,then barra only from early October to end Feb.I may have some extra fish tanks soon, so I might try some others like Jades with the barra system, and silvers with the trout system, all seperate tanks,but I'll make that decicion later.ATM it looks like barra and trout.

My bigger barra have not grown as much in November and December as we have been unusally cold,like a lot of days 20 C, but they are still nice to harvest. I may hold them for another month yet, to see if I can beef them up a bit.I was hoping to cull the bigger ones at Chrismas but there was a bit too much going on and I thought they would be better in a month.

Cheers.

[GaryD]

Hi BD,

I think that barra and trout are the ideal warm/cold combination. They are usually available as advanced fingerlings (which shaves months off the grow out time) and they grow quickly without heating or cooling (assuming you are growing in the right season).


My bigger barra have not grown as much in November and December as we have been unusally cold,like a lot of days 20 C, but they are still nice to harvest. I may hold them for another month yet, to see if I can beef them up a bit.
I'd have thought that you could get another two to three months before things cool down to the the point where it gets too cold for barra.....at least two months anyway. With the correct feeding that should make a heap of difference to the size of the fish at harvest.

Gary

[bigdaddy]

I could go along with that suggestion Gary,Although some of their lives may look limited Australia day weekend but seriously I certainly enjoy a meat barbie as well.

I checked the fish tanks temps at the peak temp today 39 c in the shade,and the temps were cruising on 31 C just fabulous IMO going for a cool one tonight 29 C minimum,I love it ,at last we are getting some nice hot weather 41 C tomorrow.

[bigdaddy]

Well folks,

Today it's raining and I have my IBC setup running well.

All fish are transfered.

I have a clay ball moving bed setup in the sump held in place with a washing basket with the old pump moving the balls along with the return line.

That is the only filtration apart from the barra bed and trout bed bio filtration ATM so it's time to move the barra sump and swirl filter over and remove the old barra tanks completely. That way I'll make my wife happy as she will have room to hang the washing and the pergola will look tidy again.

So I've done that now and my original DIY is no more, I hope this thread will help others, when contemplating a reasonably low cost off the shelf DIY.

Please feel free to comment on anything at all on this thread, and I will reply when I can, but just remember, It is no longer running as it was originally.

Cheers.