Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The desertrat
Is pleased to announce that he is not only a grand dad to 4 young humans but now to 60 or 70 yabbies
I started with 12 from a mates pond in early september and 2 weeks ago noticed a few minute babies (or whatever baby yabbies are called) can't believe how quickly they have grown.
Does anyone have a system that just utilises yabbies for nutrient supply to grow beds?
I think yabbies are an excellent addition to any aquaponic system primarily for the fact that the are able to breed so easily IMO one of the few drawbacks to aquaponics is growing trout, silvers, barra etc which don't as yet breed well in AP systems and need to be continually restocked this is a real PITA especially here in Alice where we have to obtain permits and pay more for freight than the cost of the fish, having said that can't wait to obtain my first lot of Silvers in late Dec.

Don't know that they've got the metabiolism to produce the waste load required to feed the plants, which leads to 2 options;

- ideal for those people that have insufficent GB volume compared to their pond, or
- stock a hell of a lot of them ( I like this )

I know Nocky has around 200 in a 3,000L tank - he might have something useful to add here.....

My blue barrel system is powered by yabbies... and about 4 small Silver Perch.... has a duckweed tank in full bloom as well....

You might be surprised how much ammonia a 100+ yabbies produce in a small system...

I like yabbies They will be a part of my big system.

It would be interesting to hear from anyone that has stocked yabbies and the maximum healthy numbers a system could support.
How do your yabbies fare with the Silver perch Rupoz ? Do you have anything to protect the yabbies

You can probably never fully stock an ap system with yabbies alone, they are sort of a supplementary part of the design. They simply require too much floor space, or you end up with a couple of really big yabbies only.

I'll be trying to see how many I can fit into a 1000 litre IBC in the new system, they are good to experiment with because they are so cheap.

Any good design ideas for yabbie hotels?

Silver Perch don't seem to worry the yabbies too much... especially as you need a lot of hides... to stop the yabbies chewing on one another...

The space issue is a problem. I used a shallow 1000 litre reln tub (2.2 long by 1.? wide,) to try and increase the floor space but the yabbies still kill each other.

I use cut up clay water pipe and old terracotta pots as hides. Yabbies like alkaline water and the clay based pipes and pots seem to keep things buffered up high.