Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The trout at school have shown no immediate effects from having the odd 500 or so litres of water off the Perth scheme dumped in with them and you can smell the chlorine in our water.

You can smell the chlorine in the water....

Poor bloody fish...

Perth Water is Crap and you can smell the chlorine, Narrogin water is actually (according to water corp) one of the best quality in WA and compared to Perth's I would agree, Narrogin water is like a fine Shiraz and Perth water like a crap Chardonnay (well all chardonnay is crap).
But I think I will hold off on the water change, Ammonia almost 0 and Nitrite steady, fish are happy as pigs in sh** and plants are going fine

Test results
PH 7.4
Ammonia .25 - .5
Nitrite 1ish
Nitrate 10
I gather things are happening as they should
Studying the yabbies and Pygmy Perch is quite interesting, especially the PP.
PP come out at night and sit on the bottom of the tank and gravel without moving, they all point there heads to the North as if they have some sort of PP religion and are praying to there god in the north, yabbies will walk around them and even feed right next to them but don't attack them, this is strange as we have witnessed yabbies eating each other and one aggressive yabbie (Which will soon be orange ) even grabs mussels and tows them around the tank when we through in pellets, we have a blue LED torch that doesn't disturb them but yabbies will move around when it is on but not overly concerned, will try and get a Picture tonight

How many Emu's you had already Nocky....

Sorry mate... but I'd call those tests ... Ammonia 1, Nitrites 1, Nitrates 10....

I got both the N's right, but ammonia is lighter than the pic shows at worse .5 but are things looking better, considering Nitrites were 5, I would hope so, water is a nice 9 deg so no swimming with fishes for me

Just keep them on a diet.

Ammonia .25 Nitrite 1, fish and plants going excellent, as mentioned the Pygmy Perch and Yabbies live together excellently well Pics below taken about 8.30pm and they get a bit of a shock from bright light, 3 pics took about 30 mins to take, PP are sitting on blue metal and tank bottom also you can see a couple on the tiles with a small yabbie, but look around and you will see them, sort of Where's Wally but Where's PP instead, the big yabbie in pic 1 actually grabs the mussels and moves them around the tank, yet leaves the PP alone, very strange as yabbies eat anything, PP usually sit facing one direction as mentioned before but the flash was getting them to move around a bit, you can see marron pellets in tank as well, these get cleaned up in a few minutes on average PP are about 65mm in length to give you an idea on sizes of other tank inhabitants
In bottom pic centre extreme left you can see a small yabbie with a PP near it's claws PP didn't move and yabbie didn't touch PP

Where's the Trout?

on page 10 above where you commented on how clear my water is

I have 2 tanks OBO and on page 1 post 1 explains how it is all supposed to work, at this stage all is going to plan but no doubt Murphy will come and *frack* things up eventually

Yeah I know, just 3 pictures of yabbies, none of Trout, I know how much we all like pictures of Trout Monya

I'm sticking up for Monya, but trout are doing fine, not much different to last pic, they have been on rations, system is cycling ok,
PH: 7.4
Ammonia <0.25
Nitrite 1.0
Nitrate >10 but <20
I have been reading up on feed rates, Troutman suggests 1% of body weight, so 50 x 100gm fish is about 50gms of feed per day, Fish WA suggests 1.5 but if using higher protein pellets then 1, I have 5mm SK Retting pellets at about 45% Protein so will stick with the 1 equation, I have a plastic 1/2 cup measure that holds 68gms when level full so will use that as a yard stick and increase over time, a few have suggested feeding until they stop splashing around, I would disagree with that theory as then your left with uneaten food, I haven't pushed mine to that limit, but it appears they would eat easily double the recommend amount under the splashing theory, at least 5 of my fish are bigger than I bought in Coles a couple of weeks ago for $6 each, obviously they use smaller plates to judge plate size.
I have never eaten trout so is why I got a couple from Coles, these would be cultured and grown in the same conditions as we grow them or Troutman or Golden Ponds, I asked other people what they were like to eat and got 50% good and 50% crap answers, I then was lucky enough to try some caught in lakes down south, the lake ones were not as good as the Coles ones, (this surprised me as most things from Coles is crap), they had a muddy river taste where as the bought ones tasted fresh (This also surprised me as nothing from Coles tastes fresh, We only have Coles in Narrogin), so people that haven't tasted tank grown trout would surely say they are crap.
Have some pics of veggie growth, I think things are coming along nicely. I have NFI what I planted in which row, The red cabbage is easy to spot, as are the pea's, leaks are opposite side to the cabbage but are thin and hard to see, I also have broccoli, brussel sprouts and cauliflower but will see where they are when they develop

Agree with most your feeding stuff - but if you stop throwing the handfulls of food in when they stop splashing, they still keep feeding while it's sinking.

Im going through nearly 400g of food a day with 200 fish.

well in proportion mine are on the same level OBO, but when do you up the rate, Monthly, Fortnightly?