The CERES HoneyLane site group: A timeline of our story so far...
The HoneyLane aquaponics system is run by a CERES sitegroup. This sitegroup began in 2014 when myself (Ellie) and Rob Leary put together a proposal to CERES to create a new sitegroup dedicated to running the HoneyLane system. Our proposal was approved in August 2014 and we recruited a number of aquaponics enthusiasts to be members. All of our members pay $80 per year. With this money we purchase fish, plants and other necessary supplies and we carry out DIY maintenance ourselves (It helps that Rob is also a qualified and practicing plumber!).
The seven month journey from August 2014 until now has been a rollercoaster. Aquaponics is a worthy endeavour but certainly provides challenges. Here is a quick timeline from then until now.
August
We formed our sitegroup and turned on the pump for the first time in over six months.
September
After leaving the system to run for a few weeks to settle into it's routine, a growbed sprung a leak and our pond emptied over the course of half a week: luckily we had no fish! This also explains why we were not in there checking the system everyday
We after this mini-disaster we ran our first working bee to fix the system. Rob updated some of the plumbing and the rest of us cleaned the place up, and tried our hand at some propagation. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkin, corn, basil, and coriander
November
We planted out the growbeds with our propagated seedlings, and we fostered seven large trout from another CERES aquaponics system run by Steve Mushin.
December
Our plants began to grooooooww!!
January
And Grooooowwwww!!
Although we had given the trout back to Steve, and our plants began to wilt a little.
We then made a rookie error and ordered 100 silver perch...
that were too small...
We lost a few of the little guys early on, but most of them powered through. But they didn't provide enough nutrients for the system and our plants began to yellow, but they still grew slowly...
February
Then rats raided our produce just before we picked them
After this rat nightmare we picked ourselves up and looked to get some more fish.
We moved the little fish to a tank so they could grow up over the next season, while we put some bigger fish in the pond.
We drove to a Trout farm in Ballarat and picked up some new friends
March
Unfortunately at this point we had some major dramas. The trout caught a fungal disease called white spot and we had to rig up a bathtub to give them salt baths. We lost a lot of fish. But we saved about half.
THEN, our mini Silver Perch all died in a matter of 24 hours. We are unsure exactly what from. They may have had white spot also, or they were unhappy in the tank. We don't know exactly.
It has been a sad month and a steep learning curve. BUT, we must continue!
The Trout that survived are now settling into the pond happily. The plants in the greenhouse have perked up with the extra nutrient, and we are planning and plotting for a good winter season.