Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yep...these origionally came from a freinds marron farm in Albany....I don't know if he is using the standard type or some form of cross breed

If they are a cross, they look good. Wonder how Murray crays would go in AP, anyone tried them

You could always be the first

Yeah, but the trouble would be finding some, as its closed season for the murray crays and fishing for them in the glenelg system is banned. Might look into it next year when the season opens on the murray

Given the legal size is 12cm, and the possesion limit is 10, i'm not sure how much you would get with murray crays anyway. Probably takes 10 years to put on the next 3 cm of growth.

Would certaninly be an interesting addition to keep one or two in a sump/seperate tank though. they are a very interesting little creature.

Interest but how about an update. Has anyone worked out a good system yet for breeding them using aquaponics

Breeding them isn't too much of a problem....

Stopping them from eating one another... and the babies... is...

I researched yabbies (Cherax destructor) a while back and learned a few things that might be worth relaying here,
for instance that males grow faster than females, that there is a variety that is predominantly male and preferred for commercial use, etc. Most importantly, though, it may be useful to know that smaller individuals will retard their own growth as a means of self preservation if there are big yabbies in their environment, since they would be considered more of a threat if larger. The harvest strategy, then, should probably be to continuously remove the largest ones so that the smaller yabbies feel free to keep growing. As far as I recall they can breed when relatively small so this should not be a show stopper as far as breeding them is concerned.

Yea breeding yabbies is easy.....but after that it gets difficult.

Yabbies in AP will only ever be an addition IMHO, you need a complex habitat and lot of floor space to grow a lot of yabbies, even then you need a seperate large juvenile tank too. None of which is fail safe.

EDU systems have been around for a while but never took off from trial stages.

Yabbies in hard bottom aquaculture or AP has never been succesful on a commercial scale to date.

They are however a good addition to your FT and you may get a feed now and then but Id forget about doing any sort of constant production.

You are spot on, Charlie. My place is a twice failed yabby farm because, whilst the yabbies still breed and grow, they don't like the abrasion of the concrete ponds and ultimately don't grow well enough to be economically viable. Yabbies like clay bottomed dams and mud - a habitat preference that is somewhat at odds with the clear water and hard surfaces that I believe are synonymous with AP.

If yabbies were your primary goal I imagine you could make a dam that was lined and then covered in mud. This way it is much easier to control water parameters. I have a friend that tried AP with his small dam but could never maintain the ph he wanted. Although if you are going to all that trouble you would be better off going more traditional yabbie farming techniques.

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Yep....if yabbies are your primary goal....a dam is the only way to go.

Luckily for some of us, there is 1000's of these in our backyard

Plenty of dams near my place too. Only trouble is you would probably get shot at if you got caught

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Do you only eat their tails?

I think I may have the perfect set up, having 2 tanks, joined with a storm water pipe. I have a pump and drain in the one that I will have my fish in but the other will be vacant. I could always split my fish evenly into the 2 tanks OR I could chuck some yabbies in the one away from the pump. I could knock up some sort of weaved stormwater pipe obstacle course thingo for them to hide in. Is it worth the bother or should I just concentrate on my trout. I do like yabby tail and I imagine the chooks would go off at the rest.

My system is in two parts, one is outside in the various ponic systems and my breeders are inside the Terradome which is self regulating temperature wise so I can breed all year round.
Www.paulsaquaponics.com
The tanks were picked up from a failed fish breeder in melb. They are all in series so water from the first flows into the second etc until it ends up in the pit, then pumped into the grow bed and the process goes on.
The first tanks are juvenile yabbys and each tank progressively has older yabby until they get to plate size. There any interesting or especially colourful ones are removed to the breeding tanks, the rest are eaten.
Out in the ponics they are used to rest after a breed season and clean up the bases of algae, slime and any dead fish.
Every so often they get a bonus chicken neck from the freezer.