My systems.....

[Shane]

hi shane
great time of year now the water is warming up and things are starting to grow

Hi Robin,
Yep, the plants & fish are beginning to grow quicker now that things are starting to warm up,
Although Melbourne is (apparently) scheduled for a month's worth of rain this coming Sat/Sunday...we'll have to wait & see if the BOM get that right?

did the hail belt the living out of the cucumbers and tomatoes or did it settle on them?
robin

Pretty much smothered the small cuc/tommies that I had in.....GB's must have had nearly an inch of hail dumped onto them (twice)....I was only home to witness the 1st dumping.
Anyhow, all the replanting done has turned out well so far.....looks like only one of my seedlings may not take (one of the assorted lettuce).

Cheers,
Shane.

[robinmill]

hi shane
did you manage to notice how much the water temp dropped?
was it much?
or was it just the hail/ice against the leaves?
robin

[Shane]

hi shane
did you manage to notice how much the water temp dropped?
was it much?
or was it just the hail/ice against the leaves?
robin

G'day Robin,
IIRC Water temps in both tanks dropped by approx 10 Degrees Celsius, Put the fish off their food for a few days.
Water temps have been climbing ever since though here in Melbourne, my tanks last night were at 23.5 & 24 Degrees Celsius respectively. This will drop again though as we are (well apparently says the Weather Mob) going to get possible thunderstorms later today.....then approximately a normal months rainfall will fall over the coming Saturday/Sunday.
Whereabouts are you located Robin?

[robinmill]

hi shane
i am in numeralla, which is about 100k SE of canberra
i am watching my water go up and down with the weather but my water is at 18 and i have rainbow trout
needs some cooling soon...... or hail
robin

[Shane]

Well, with both the Cubby House & daughters B'day completed, it was time to get back to the neglected AP units....just in the nick of time too as it turned out!

Was woken up by my two youngest Son's about 6.30am on Sunday, absolutely bucketing down outside....."Dad the TV just turned off by itself".
I checked the fuse box & sure enough one of the safety switches had tripped & shut off power to part of the home. Gave it a flick & it immediately tripped again. Damn I thought, & got dressed & headed out the front yard to inspect the Christmas lights I'd installed all along the front verandah the arvo before, but no? everything was fine with the lights/install.

Walked around the back to check the outside plugs for the heater etc, everything was fine here too? When approaching the AP units though I soon realised that neither unit was pumping into the growbeds & my battery backup on the main unit hadn't kicked in. A closer inspection had me shaking my head at what I'd done weeks ago.

Weeks or so ago when installing an electro-magnetic air pump I removed the powerboard & everything else from the weatherproof plastic box I have. Hooked up the pump & plugged it in & stuffed the powerboard back into the box. In my haste I neglected to put back in the back up battery fail safe box & inadvertently had it lying on the ground unseen at the back of the large plastic box.

It had been subject to various rain over that time.....but this morning I found it completely submerged in a large pool of water, so this was where the trip was caused.

Thank God for safety switches....fail safe is frazzled though!

Reminded me also that I need to hook up a back up to the megabin unit, thats another thing I'd neglected to getting around to.

Cheers,
Shane.


Some clickable thumbnails.......

[Shane]

And this is a pic of the Cubby House.....The cause of my recent AP neglect!.....painted in the same colour as our house.

[Crusty]

In my haste I neglected to put back in the back up battery fail safe box & inadvertently had it lying on the ground unseen at the back of the large plastic box.

It had been subject to various rain over that time.....but this morning I found it completely submerged in a large pool of water, so this was where the trip was caused.

Thank God for safety switches....fail safe is frazzled though!

Reminded me also that I need to hook up a back up to the megabin unit, thats another thing I'd neglected to getting around to.

Wow that was lucky Shane! Was the box not water proof? Far out. I posted a bit of a how to make the back up switch in the equipment forum. Let me know if you have any issues via pm and I will help you sort it out.

Lucky lucky.

Other than that, the cubbie is fantastic mate. Did you build it yourself?

[Shane]

Wow that was lucky Shane! Was the box not water proof? Far out. I posted a bit of a how to make the back up switch in the equipment forum. Let me know if you have any issues via pm and I will help you sort it out.

Lucky lucky.

G'day Crusty,

The lid on that fail safe box had a hairline crack in it as I had accidently dropped it onto a Bessor Block when first installing it, the crack never bothered me though as the box was normally inside another large plastic box(with a lid) that houses my powerboard etc.

Other than that, the cubbie is fantastic mate. Did you build it yourself?

My Wife had been keeping an eye out for a small, compact Cubbie that could be kept up on the deck so that my daughter could still play outside in it even if it was raining. So where you see it in the pic is where its staying.

Cubbie arrived in largish flat packs, all pre cut, all I needed to do was drill plenty of holes, assemble as per the decent instructions/diagrams provided, then screw everything together.....easy peasey
IIRC instructions said it was made in Canada.....Wife bought it from Big W.

Cheers,
Shane.

[GaryD]

Hi Shane,

Your backup power relay switch failure demonstrates how easy it is to get into trouble with electricity. Simply dropping the switch created that situation.

I wonder if most of us don't take too much for granted around electricity sometimes.

Gary

[Shane]

All the fish are going.....well swimmingly
& the plants are all doing what they are supposed to.....growing & producing plenty.
Actually producing more lettuce than we can consume, couple have gone to seed now & will be replaced this weekend with some seedlings that my younger Son's had previously planted in vermiculite seed trays.
Large amounts of rain recently, so no need to top up tanks fer quite awhile.
Muggy days weather wise have kept the FT temps around the 22-26 Degree C.

Two of my Tommies have started to fruit (both San Marzano's), other varieties of Tommies only now just beginning to flower.
Chilli's have taken off the past week or so as well,
The new crop of Snow Peas, Beans & Peas we replaced a little while back are all reasonably small, but Snow Peas & Peas are now beginning to produce....no sign of any beans just yet.
Zuc's are flowering, no Cuc's as of yet, Egg plants growing strongly also.
Finally, it also looks like I'll have some success with Strawberries this year

Managed to pull out a few onions also last week, they were good too. Remaining one's are still too small, I currently have around 60 odd scattered throughout the various GB's.
Cheers,
Shane.