Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Over the last few days we've discussed housing for redclaw. As I understand it, redclaw live on the bottom, and commercial farmers recommend stocking at 5 - 10 crays per square metre.

We have an IBC that has not got a specific job yet, so I thought that it might work as a home for the redclaw. This however leaves me with only 10 redclaw in the whole system! That's gone in a single feed!

Alex, C1 and I were chatting about this and came up with the thought that if the redclaw's population could handle it, we could build a "Japanese Hotel" for them.

Following is a quick design, without any plumbing or furniture. We would most likely put in pipe off cuts for "individual rooms". The top would be cut off the IBC for access (replaceable lid) and the floors made of plastic mesh.

Please let us know what you think and if it would be a viable option.

You're definately on the righttrack. when cutting the IBC ensure you leave a horizontal lip on it so they cant get out.

I've see bread crates stacked to get this type effect for yabbies/crays.

They'll live in pipes happily. how do you feed multi levels?

You add cable and a wireless connection and you have gone too far J. Great Idea.

Keep the ideas comming as I want to do the same!

great work hopefully you have perfected it by the time i buy a house so i ca copy..... with the levels be removable/stackable for harvest?

Wow

yes the levels will be removable for ease of access.

Feeding to different levels - maybe a small platform on each level with a feeding pipe to drop the food to each floor (a dumb waiter)

The floors will prolly be some cheap garden mesh. The floor height will match the height of the pipe bits.

looking good Jaymie. I think the feeding mechanism needs a little work. What about pipes coming up from each level to the top that are to small for the crayfish to get through but you can drop food down.

Thanks D, that was kind of what I was trying to explain, but so much clearer!

they can just dial 9 for room service. Happiest redclaw this side of the nullabor!

untill christmas lunch that is

Hi jamie!
this looks MUCH nicer than the intensive matrix-like bottle system that was posted a few months ago. At least the yabbies can move around and perform all their natural behaviors. Apparently they often live in very crowded conditions around drought time anyway. it may look pretty squishy to us but fine for them.
Aeon.

Hello Aeon.......nice to see you around again.

Setting aside the ethics of "the matrix-like bottle system" for a moment, they must have had some way of feeding the yabbies (or redclaw). That would help to answer the question of how to feed freshwater crayfish in multi-tier systems.

I might ask them.

the edu (extreme density units) for the yabbies i believe were fed a paste, it was mixed in the water and settled on the bottom of the containers for the yabbies to eat

Hey Gary,
Yabbies bring us together agin!
I'm pretty sure i remember the bottle guys saying that the one downside of the system was having to put food in to each bottle individually and that this was time consuming and a risk to the system - especially if they had to go away for a few days.

I think you could possibly get away with putting some meaty bones in the tank if you needed to be absent for a few days, down the aforementioned feeding chutes (one for each level maybe?)