Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Huh! If that was me I would have reached for the camera
And yes Neta, I remember seeing the water not the wind. I should probably be asleep now.

Yup, me too... keep thinking what a missed photo op

... I think bed is calling me as well

A pic of our FIRST AP PLANT!!! Checked my journal, and its a cucumber. Since we first saw it yesterday, another 4 have popped up today... so half have sprouted as we put in 10. Weve also spotted a couple of lettuce and 1 corn today so things are really starting to happen now!

Just thought Id throw in a couple of extra shots... has anyone else got a mega frog plague? They are everywhere here - right across the district... never seen anything like it! have pulled about 10 from the sump so far and thrown them into the duckweed tanks... never know, might end up with tadpoles in them!
Millions like the 1st pic... first time Ive seen one of the 2nd... Much bigger.
Just as a side note Ive heard there are green tree frogs at menindee lakes!

Spoke to a fellow down the road who lives on the river. With the river rising it had filled up all the backwaters to the point they needed earthmoving equipment to put in a new road so they didnt need to use a tinny to get to the house.

He told us there were masses of fry and fingerlings in the waters and quite a few different species. We took a couple of butterfly nets and buckets and kids down there the other day and had a great hour until it got dark seeing what we could catch, and ended up coming home with about 40 little fish ranging from 10-25mm as well as a heap of duckweed (with some baby glass shrimp and water snails mixed in) and put it all into one of the spare tanks we had put aside for duckweed.

Ive been worrying about food for them so this morning decided to experiment by crushing up a bit of floating barra feed and spinkling a tiny bit on the surface to see what would happen... 10 mins later when I looked there was some interest, fish appearing to be looking on the surface when they werent before. about 30 mins later sprinkled a bit more on, and 5 mins later there were about 20 of them getting quite excited about trying out the food!

Have to admit I was quite surprised as they are so tiny, and wondering if the little ones trying to eat the bigger bits were going to choke, but really chuffed that any of them are interested!

Thought we could have a mix of perch, cod, bream, catfish... or minnows. They are schooling and there are definitely a few different types. Was told that what we thought were the catfish are probably cod as the eyes are closer to the top of the head, but will probably just have to wait and see.

The same fella had also said there were schools of about 8-10cm perch swimming around but are so quick he had no idea how to catch them for us. Trying to put our heads together ATM to see if we can come up with something.

Perhaps you need one of these, most fishing shops have them, I've been meaning to try one out for a long time...

That looks like fun! Thanks for posting the vid EB

Had wondered about a net but not sure how well it would work as the water is sitting on scrub bushland with lots of submerged gum tree sticks and branches. Even with our butterfly nets we were ripping them to shreds pretty quick.

used to use a cast net regularly when i lived in Gladstone. Lot of fun & very effective but aren't they frowned upon in NSW & Vic

Or possibly one of these?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVZBtLCL ... ata_player

More than likely. And to be honest I doubt I would be able to source one locally even if I wanted one...

What we are unsure about here is the fact that because these fish have made their way into the equivalent of a private dam as its a very low point with no drainage, we were all discussing what we could do about them once the river drops to the point that the backwater is cut off and the water starts drying up! We were all thinking that if they are going to die anyway that we might as well save as many as we can and chuck the minnows into the duckweed tanks and see how they go. So once the river drops to the point that their 'lake' is cut off from the river, we are going to look and see what is there.


To be honest I wouldnt really want to catch the large fingerlings for ourselves... would rather support our local fish guy and buy our stock so that we know what we are getting. But if there are heaps of native fish trapped in there, we would all like to see them in the river populating and competing against the bloody carp!

Had a guy look at the ones we have here today - he said there seem to be 2 types, one he thinks might be catfish (I think weve got 3 so we might fish them out and put back in the river - not interested in keeping them)... the others are only minnows (different sizes was causing the confusion) ... so to be honest minnows would be great to have under the duckweed to feed our Murray Cod once we buy some fingerlings.

Also the little glass shrimp seem really happy which would be another good thing to try and breed. Only thing Im worried about is that there seem to be a few snails as well which might foul the pumps?

Thanks for posting that jdphish they would be good for catching glass shrimp too wouldn't it?

Hubby couldnt help himself... as if we dont have enough citrus trees here already!

They are a couple of left over Cara Cara (pink orange) from a planting, so he wants to see how they go and whether the growth is better than the ones in the ground... his little experiment
5 little corn plants.
6 cucumbers... I feel a glut coming on if they do well!

now all the hard work pays off and the fun begins

I know, Its SO COOL!!! I cant believe how excited we are getting every time a new shoot appears!

I would say that the family is all getting sick of being dragged to the GH as soon as they arrive to see whats going on... but to be honest, now that there is something happening everyone is getting more interested and even asking if they can use one of the beds to chuck in a few seeds for themselves

That sounds like a great idea, to share the system...

netab33, the trap should work for glass shrimp. Nice pics as well.