My systems.....

[Shane]

OK.....back to around the start of this year/end of last year,
I can't remember for exactly how long ? but I think it was for a week or two (might have been a little longer?) that we ran the system fishless, just giving it a dose of Seasol every now & then for the plants.

Constant 40+ Deg. C. days over the Christmas holidays really smacked some of the plants around (my system has no shading & cops the brunt of a long afternoon sun). Killed off all the snow peas (which were huge producers) & fried most of my assorted lettuces.
Tommie plants stood up pretty well considering & the celery wasn't bothered by the heat at all?....actually seemed to thrive on it!

Eventually took a quick trip up to Glenburn to the native fish farm & I returned with some Eel Tailed Catfish,

For those who live overseas & aren't familiar with our Eel Tailed Catfish (Tandanus Tandanus), here's a link...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel-tailed_catfish

Cat's were very small & not wanting them to possibly get sucked up against the pump intake I decided instead to temporarily house them in the fingerling tank,
That decision ended up teaching me a good lesson regarding 'maintainence of your system'

...I'll go into that one next time.

Cheers,
Shane.

[MarkEinOz]

The best thing about getting the kids involved (happily!) is that even when you become a boring old fart (about when they are 10!) they will still have a great experience locked away for when they get older and start to think about growing a few veggies in their backyard. It really is a legacy connecting your children to the food/life cycle.

[Shane]

Yeah agreed Mark,

The younger kids are very curious & constantly asking questions as to the 'what & why your doing it' with everything involved in AP. They are always eager to eat the vegies & fish that they've helped to grow too.

& as a bonus my eldest Son (17) is always available if I ever need an extra pair of hands when positioning tanks & Gb's....which helps save my back.

[froggo]

Hi Shane,

your system looks like it's going well. The catfish are interesting fish, I'm going to get some from John for my system also.

Well done and God bless, froggo.

[Shane]

Hi Shane,

your system looks like it's going well. The catfish are interesting fish, I'm going to get some from John for my system also.

Well done and God bless, froggo.

Hi froggo,
Yeah the Cat's are interesting,
Mine really haven't grown much.....still very small.....pretty much all uniform in size too.
I've found them to be very skittish, whilst they'll cruise around at night they are rarely seen during daylight hours as they constantly remain hidden in pipe hides.

My surviving one's are still currently housed in my fingerling tank, they'll be transferred into a separate system sometime in the next month or two (currently fishless cycling the other system which has only been up & running for a couple of weeks now).


Heres a couple of pics of them from last night.








I've lost 9 of them so far,
2 in the first week or so after getting them, then no losses for quite awhile.
I lost the other 7 through neglect, when I had the Trout in everything was motoring along fine,
I basically got lazy regarding maintainence, this led to a gradual build up of biofilm in the drain pipe from the fingerling tank into the main tank. Eventually this build up blocked the pipe completely & caused my fingerling tank to overflow, fortunately I was home at the time & spotted it & was able to rectify the situation. But I wasn't in time to help the 7 Catfish that had already washed out the top of the tank, an unnecessary fish kill that was my fault entirely. Lesson learn't.

Cheers,
Shane.

[Shane]

We then added 52 Silver Perch to the main FT after another trip past Glenburn & was reminded to get the next system up & running to transfer the Cat's into.


Silver Perch in main FT




I'd had an additional GB lying against the fence for about 8 months, I dragged it out, stacked & filled some Besser blocks & squeezed it into position. It was a tighter squeeze than I thought it'd be, I'd originally measured the gap OK, but hadn't taken into account the downpipe from the roof. Fortunately it fit without adjustment....just.

[Shane]

The younger fella's were eager to prepare the site for our new FT, we decided to drop the height of the tank as we intend to put another smaller growbed over the top of it eventually.





Getting there.....slowly.



Digging down deeper became an even slower process, had to cut through all the old roots left from the tree that used to be in this area before the house extension.





Eventually though the area was all ready....now all we needed was a fish tank!

[Shane]

My teenage son helped me lift our FT shoulder high through the gap & over the growbed (I don't think I'd have been able to do it all by myself).
We used a Megabin this time around for a FT, after positioning & filling around the sides of the hole we removed about 200 litres of water from the main tank & topped up with approx another 200 or so from the tap.

Constant rain had delayed us that day so it became a scramble to get the pipework all in place before darkness. Not having enough long lengths of PVC on the day was temporarily overcome with a couple of offcuts, joiners & a bit of duct tape. Therefore no pipework was glued on the day. The dodgey electrical connection (pictured wrapped in plastic bags on top of bricks) will be replaced in a sealed plastic box.





Finally we threw in the pump & the system fired up, auto siphon kicked in first time & hasn't missed a beat since. Water turned dark brown immediately from the unwashed hydroton.

The following weekend we got our first chance to plant out the growbed. IIRC we put in snow peas, brocolli, cauliflower & errr ummm something else?

Since then we've had very slow growth in the plants, I guess the higher pH in this system (currently 7.8) may be causing some nutrient lockout.

Water colour had cleared after one weeks operation.





On the main system both the Catfish & Silvers were only feeding every 3-5 days due to the very low water temps. It was the first time ever that I'd had to net up uneaten food off the bottom of the tanks.
I threw in two 300W heaters into the main tank to bring up the water temp in that & the fingerling tank above it. Silvers & Catfish much more lively now & back to feeding well every night.

Silvers in main tank



Cheers,
Shane.

[GaryD]

Hi Shane,

The story of your system......and the photos that illustrate it.......will serve as an inspiration for many of our members. Thank you for making the effort.

Gary

[Shane]

Main system all running well,
Started harvesting some of the assorted lettuces yesterday.
All is good with the Silvers & Catfish.

Megabin system still fishless cycling,
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 1
Nitrate 0
pH 7.8

Noticed on Saturday arvo that we were starting to get a bit of algae building up on the sides & bottom of the tank.







Gave it a good scrub with a broom & threw a lid over the top of the tank to cut out the sunlight.
Lid currently doesn't seat correctly (due to the hose from the pump poking out one side), after we fit the additional GB over the top we'll cut holes in the required areas to fit all hoses & air lines through so that lid is a snug fit. May split the lid in 1/2 to make access easier (rather than lifting the entire thing off every time to feed).




Growth in the Megabin GB is still slowish....but its starting to perk up a tad.




Cheers,
Shane.