Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok here goes,

I have been a long time follower of this website. In fact I probably have had a read of this every day for the past month without joining. I currently have an aquaponics system that I started back in April 2008; after reading Joel's book. I have used yabbies and wild caught fish, golden perch, (unsuccessful couldn't train them on to the pellets). Have grown quite a few vegetables but have never harvested any of the fish

A little about myself. I'm 24, I live on a 20,000 acre sheep farm in far western NSW, back of Bourke and with my parents we run about 6000 ewes.

In October 09, I went and bought my first fish, 14 silver perch, approx 10cm, they settled in well and grew taking pellets with vigour. Water was clear everything tested well.

So I have recently gone to Narrabri, Namoi Valley Fish Farm, and bought 300 little silver perch fingerlings, ($1). They have settled in pretty well. I lost 14 of them which I think is just to do with the travel (4 hours +). And they were mostly the small ones less then 3cm long. So I am pretty happy with that. Water salted to approximately 2ppm, seemed to really help them settle in.

Plans are to expand the system and to accommodate the fingerlings to grow out. I also want to try barramundi in the summer next year.

I currently have two tanks: (IBC (1000lt) overflows to other via 40mm dwv and 25mm poly SLO drain and 1500lt sphere fibreglass tanks), These are both inside a semi closed off shed.

This is pumped to five grow beds; 2 x 400 lt round cattle trough, 1 bathtub (200lt), 1 sheep trough (400lt) , and a cast iron hot water service (300lt), All have stand pipes except for the hot water service which is continuous flow. All of which are filled with blue metal.

Two pumps; a Pondone stingray 10,000 with 40 mm poly pump out, and a Davey d15 vortex sump pump (the second on that I have had) with 32 mm return line. And a Resun 20lt/min air pump running a couple of air stones. (runs all the time)

This all runs 15 min on 45 min off 24/7

I have a few pictures of the setup and the plumbing and a diagram too make it all clear,

Wow! Surprises everywhere. I really love to see people sharing the things they have done. The plant growth looks really good, thanks for showing us Farmer Luke. Baby fish are such fun to watch aren't they?

That looks pretty good Luke, can't be much else green around there usually. Is it bore water you are using?

I flew a light plane across where you are a couple of years back, and when you say you live out back of Bourke, I can honestly say it looked like the back of Bourke!! I can remember seeing a cattle feed lot out there some where near Bourke. I remember because I thought it a bit strange being so far from grain growing country and a market.

Did you cop any rain during the last month? With sheep prices where they, are a bit of rain would have to make you smile, probably for the first time in a few years. Unless the fly's give you hell.

It is great to see you on the forum, more photos are always great to see. You could include a few photos of "out the back of Bourke too." Best of luck with you AP.

HI all,

Need some advice.

In case you haven't seen the news. The catchment area for the river that runs through my property is about to go into flood. It has rained alot in SW Queensland. IN about 10 days time I will leave my house and my fish. For a period up to a month, possibly more. I suspect that the only way back in will be in a helicopter. We are moving all the sheep on this side of the river to my uncles place. To where, what we call absolute high ground. I have 300 fingerlings (5cm) and 5 large silvers.

What can I do to keep them alive if I can't get back?

I can leave the pumps on and I think that as long as it is not to hot the water should last. Will they survive?
Should I just release them into the flood water?

Anyone ever left fish for a month? Will they be alive?

Farmer Luke, First off please dont release the fish into the flood waters as this will impact the local eco systems and cause all sorts of havoc.

for leaving you fish a month there are some things you can try one is to lower the water temp if possible to lowest tolerable for the the species you have the lower temp in a summer fish will lower thier appetites yabbies in particular at 10-12 degrees stop feeding almost completely you will need to lower it over a period of time based on starting temp try to lower at a maximum of 2 degrees per day this can be achieve by adding shade cloth directly over the ponds 2cm from the surface if possible and then add extremely large amounts of airation to the water to release the heat. I would then look at adding an aquatic plant that thrives in low light such as duckweed for the fish to pick at if need be but be aware over the space of a month they will definately eat eachother and will prob reduce the population by a third.

these would be the things i would try


HTH


Regards,
Michael

If you are going to be flooded, then the likely hood of power outages would be very high, or are you on your own power generator, which means you won't be there to feed that either.

If you do have power, then pumping in heaps of air I believe will increase the water temp during the day as the air is at air temp plus the heat generated by pumping it. Keeping the water temp down below 15 deg would be necessary to minimize feeding and that would not be possible.

I reckon if you want to keep your fish alive, you are going to have to move them, whether that be sell them, take them with you etc. You would have to sacrifice your plants and sacrifice having a matured system.

Being a 1 in 100 year event, I would say that you are more fortunate than many others in catastrophic events as you have time to plan for it. Needless to say I don't envy the situation that is fast approaching you, and I do wish you luck and the best in dealing with it.

I was looking on the map before I opened your thread to see if you would be in danger of flooding, but was uncertain as to what river and you exact location. What is the name of the river that will flood you out?

The name of the river is the Culgoa. Below St George the balone river splits into 4 smaller rivers. It is sort of like an inland delta. The country is very flat. The country is very, very flat. Looking at the records this should be the biggest flood since 1983 for us, as a guess. The water seems to be moving even faster then it did in 1990. In that flood my Dad was catching foot long carp out the front of our house with buckets. This flood will almost certainly be deeper. So we are leaving.

I don't think that the power will go out. What happens is that the water slowly creeps up over a couple of days and then stays up. We have to be gone in a week.

Our house is two miles from the river and should stay reasonable dry. However everything around will be flooded. There will be no road access; dirt roads made of clay. For something like a month maybe more. Hard to say at this point, if there is no more rain then might be earlier.

If I could I would probably sell the fish, but the problem is I am 1.5 hours drive from the nearest town. And 4 hours to the nearest fish farm that I know. It is 12km to our nearest neighbor. Will be a bit hard to find a market for them I think. I would prefer to take my chances at keeping them alive. Besides which don't have time to be tripping around; have a few sheep to move.

I was thinking of leaving a hose dripping into the tank; bore water ph8 and fairly hard. No good for the plants; (strawberries die will a 50/50 mix with rainwater) but seems to be ok for the fish. And I was thinking of setting up a bug zapper over the tanks on a timer? If it turns on twice a week at night for an hour or so they should be starvation rations. I know that big fish are ok with that, not sure about fingerlings?

Thanks for the advice about the temperature. I will put a bit more shade around the plants and the tanks and the window into the shed to decrease the temperature.

I was also thinking of putting the airstones in the fingerling tanks near the overflow so that when some of them die they won't be sucked into the overflow stainer and cause the water to run out. And then they will be feed for the others. A bit morbid I know.
Any other ideas? HELP

Yea, that may all work. Maybe set the bug zapper to come on every night for an hour, depending on how many bugs it would zap in an hour. I reckon, or perhaps guess, that the fingerlings would probably go for the insects, after a few sink to the bottom, they will work it out.

Providing the power stays on you may be right. However if the power goes off for a few hours your timer may be out of sink with night time. To play it safe you may need so cycle the bug zapper on a few times over the course of 24 hours to allow for this.

Best of luck.

I spoke to a fish farmer in my area and he said that you virtually cant starve a fish to death. He had some bass that he clams to have not fed in 6 months and they looked fine in a little tank. This does not mean the fish wont eat each other. I think your best bet is to cool the tank and and do your best to increase the total water volume. With more water you will get more surface area and more gas transfer if the power goes out. If the fish aren't fed too much they wont contaminate the water very quickly. Best of luck to you.

Make sure that your power is not on one of those powerboards that shuts down when the power surges or goes off intermittently, particularly if it doesn't reset itself.

Your fish will be fine without food for a month or so, but they will need water and air.

Leave that tap dripping into the tank (even if it ends up overflowing it) and make sure that your pumps will run as much as possible. Take the hit in power consumption for the health of the fish while you are not there. If the power stays on, and the tank stays full of water, you will be fine.

Good luck with it.

thats a good thought OB. If you have a rain catchment tank like so many Ozzys have you could run a line from it to your FT and leave that dripping. Should still work with the power off if it is above your ft.

So the flood has arrived. Fortunately, it has peaked about 20cm lower then predicted. Which means that I haven't had to leave the house or my fish. The flood has still covered about 10,000 acres of our property. I have a few photo's of the water arriving.

I bought some new goodies. I seem to have read alot of posts that end with and then all my fish died cause the power went out...and I didn't have any backup supply. So I didn't want to be one of these people. So having done a bit of reading I thought that the battery charger/car battery/inverter/air pump seemed like the cheapest and easiest way to keep the fish alive. Of course in an extended black out I would still have to run a generator to pump water.

A few more flood photos.

Good news Farmer Luke, you are not alone with the flooding around the country, it is just a different degree, the depth that changes. Glad to hear that things worked in your favour and that you didn't have to leave home.