Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Cool vid Skeggly one!

Anybody able to lip read trout ?

Yup, a little bit out of control Jay. Unfortunately I've not got anything on the go to plant now that the winter crop is finishing.... Shade cloth for summer is rising on the list.

I thought exactly the same Dr Bee however I'd rather not know cos we're going to eat him soon...

Your system looking great. I have a concern about the two trees closest to your sump hole. In a local installation, I saw a sump similarly close to a tree. The root system was compromised by the digging, the tree blew over and what was in the ground acted like a lever against the side of the IBC tank. It ruined the tank in the ground.


We have a home Do it yourself store in the states called Home Depot. I bought a pond/fountain pump by Beckett. It was around $80 US and is guaranteed for 3 years. I am pumping into the IBC fish tank above ground 6 feet and it handles that fine so far. The rest is all gravity.

Hiya emp, thanks for the compliment and your concern regarding the trees. They are carob trees and have tap roots that probably go to China, commonly used to aid in soil retention in eroding areas also great fire resistant qualities, animal stock feed and of course the bean pods make a good chocolate substitute. I was thinking of planting a tree close to the hole to shade the sump as it fairly cooks in summer but will rethink it due to your advice.

Time for some overdue sump maintenance this weekend, will cut out most of the winter plants in a spring clean and get some seedlings in if time permits.

Oh we had a stupid fox come over for a free feed of chicken earlier in the week... As foxes do it had disabled two chooks and was chasing a third when I interrupted the party at 4 in the morning. Fortunately it's greed meant it went hungry and the two chooks are recovering well. So back to the locking up the chooks at night time again.

Pulled a couple of rt's out of the small system yesterday, not because we had to just because. Tried laying them upright for a change which worked well but was a pain to debone. Scored the skin on one to see if there is much difference with an non scored one. Ate the scored one for lunch and will memory compare at dinner time... The skin had a pink colour to it after feeding 7mm pellets from a 20 kg spectra bag. Experienced no colouring last year so it's nice to see. Oh tasted good too with a brown sugar, salt and garlic marinade.

38°c here today from mid twenties yesterday, around 12°c last nite.
Larger system water temp was 18°c this morning so still time for more growth with the cool nights.

Nice one Skeg

Nice fish Dude

Thanks fellas, I rarely look at the fish in the small system generally I just chuck a handful of pellets in before work so was somewhat surprised at their size.
Wait till you see the big ones they are pretty impressive especially considering they were some of our first batch of fish in AP.

Wow, Skeg, I really enjoyed reading this epic thread! What a saga - thanks for sharing! I must say, I'm happy to see that you are coping so well with your AP addiction. I'll be keeping an eye out for your updates!

Thanks LM.
Here's the latest clip, enjoy.






Quick question to the trout experts out there; Are these rt's too fat?

So, did that last link not work?

Take two.




Question still stands.

great fish video Skeg.

Cool vid, and yep they are overweight. I used to use another small pump in my FT to circulate the FT water as it gave the fish something to swim against, it doubled as a venturi as well.

Thanks guys I'm pretty proud of my fatties.
There is a fair current in the tank when the pump is running and already run at nearly 200watts as is so don't really want to add another power draw to the system, I have a small pump but it still draws 50watts maybe I'll just run a supplementary till harvest time mid December to tone them up.
You can see the difference between the 2 boys and 3 girls in the vid too. Keep in mind the biggest would be around 500mm long, weight wise, dunno.
I'll take some pics of the plants soon for my monthly update so stay tuned.

Protein in a tank