Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That makes sense.

http://pender.ces.ncsu.edu/2012/07/heat-causes-ripening-problems-with-tomatoes/

A few pics, some of the strawberries and Yacon leaves are showing signs of some deficiency or excess, not sure of what though, but they continue to grow and produce well anyway

Thai Chilli


Yacon or Peruvian Ground Apple



Strawberries

Chocolate Mint- I was advised against planting it, but it's not been a problem at all- every week or 2 I break off any runners heading away from the edge, and the rest of it cascades down to the ground. It makes the GH smell delicious when I squash the wayward runners




A couple of rockmelons and a watermelon

Some nice crops there Guna

One of the Murray Cod has been a lot larger than the others for some time, it lurked inside the bung hole on one side of the tank, to which is attached a bend and a vertical pipe, which runs up the outside to the top of the tank. Lately "The Beast" has become far too large to turn around in there, so spent a lot of its time facing inwards. By blowing down the pipe I could force water and it out into the tank, but it generally went straight back in. I've never seen this fish eat, and suspected it must eat smaller fish to have grown so large. Yesterday I decided I might have to go for a swim to block the bung holes from the inside- the other side just has a bung in it, and a Cod that lurks in it too, and in recent weeks its been spending quite a bit of time attempting to turn around to face outwards.

Yesterday I chucked in a chunk of my new feed mix to see if they would nibble bits off it, rather than me having to chop it up into small pieces. Early this morning it was still there, not really any smaller, so this arvo I went down to scoop it out with a net, and as I was face down just above the water looking for it, unsuccessfully, The Beast floated into view right in front of my face, dead



It was 120mm long, and looking down its throat, I could see it was chock full of food, it must have attempted to eat the large chunk in one go, and just about burst itself open in the process!

I guess the smaller fish will be more likely to survive now, the next largest is quite a bit smaller than The Beast from the Bung Hole was, and hopefully less likely to bite off more than they can manage.

Bugger he bit off more than he could chew.

Good luck with the smaller ones.

Bugger, my cod are still all shy. I wonder if they are actually there sometimes.

They do have impressive mouths though, way bigger than I think they'd need.

Have you got them on pellets yet?

They are still not on pellets, as I have not yet found any sinking pellets. I have asked a certain purveyor of fish & pellets who used to be a member here... but no response so far.
I bought another ox heart and added it to part of my previous mix of ox heart, Blood Worms and pellets, which was a bit crumbly and not very attractive to the fish, in as much as they ate very little of it. With a much higher percentage of meat in it they seem more interested- but its not the sort of thing I can put in an auto feeder, so I have to take it from the freezer and chop into small pieces each time I feed them. I usually give it to them for breakfast when they are most hungry, and Blood Worms 2 or 3 times throughout the rest of the day. They really love the Blood Worms, its a pity they are so bloody expensive- $45/kg here. I know they are cheaper on ebay, but a 600+km round trip to get some adds a lot to their cost.

What about compost worms, you could grow them with yr veg leftovers. I'm sure you've already thought of this.

I tried the dried bloodworms on my guys, and they didn't seem slightly interested. But I've got some fish growing faster than the others too, and some that don't seem to have grown at all since I got them.

Would the cod eat the normal worms? I've given the caterpillars, they don't show any interest.

Yea, I have a worm farm, the trout never seemed interested in worms, but I haven't tried them on the cod yet.

I'm using frozen Blood Worms, which I realise are mostly water, but not as hideously expensive as the dried variety.

They did eat some fly maggots I fed them from a dead mouse the other day, and I have plenty of wasp maggots in the worm farm, but they are quite large, so I was waiting until the fish grew a bit larger before trying them.

My Rainbow Trout were quite keen on earth worms, Gunagulla. Worms were my bait of choice when first harvesting my trout, at least until I caught the first one each session and then I switched to fresh trout gill as bait.

Maybe our West Oz worms are that much tastier than yours!

Hi Gordon

How many of your original batch of Murray Cod is still alive?

Also - have you considered sleepy Cod as an alternative? i have seen a video from Murray H. with a seemingly successful tank of sleepy cod. They don't get as large as Murray Cod but may be a bit easier to keep?


Regards

Gabe

Hi Gabe, I reckon I have about 100 left from the original 150. I've only lost one in the past month, the big one I mentioned a few posts back, as they are eating well now. I think the only problem was them not being pellet trained when I got them. I should have trusted what I was seeing, ie they were mostly not eating the pellets, rather than the story my supplier told me, and started feeding them Blood Worms sooner. I don't think I'll buy such small fish next time, I'll wait until they are larger, by which time they really would be pellet trained.

I don't think Sleepy Cod would survive the winter here, their natural range is limited to the far north of Australia, and I saw 7C in my FT last winter. They probably require over 20 or 25C, at a guess. The Murray Cod occur (or used to, I don't think there are many left these days) in a river only about 10km from here, but even so, I think I will add a little bit of heat over winter to keep them eating and growing.

Another Cod death. It was alive when I spotted it drifting around on the bottom on Friday, so I put it into the ST, but it was dead the next morning. It didn't appear to have over-indulged on food like the last one, so I have no idea why it died. None of the others seem to be unwell.


The tomatoes are still producing well, albeit at a slower rate in the cooler weather, and now the ones I pruned right back in the outside GB have re-shot and produced more fruit, but I may well pull the plants before they are ripe. Total pick now just over 140kg. I've picked quite a lot of capsicums too, most of which have been used in the tomato sauce.

I'm picking about 100g of strawberries every day or 2, and picked the one decent sized rockmelon today, which was delicious. The vine had been destroyed by powdery mildew, so the other smaller melons never grew large. The same happened to the watermelon vines, so the few melons never got very large, and I have not checked to see how they taste yet.

I have not been able to source any sinking pellets in a small enough quantity to be of use, so am continuing to feed blood worms and the mix previously detailed. I've also thrown in a few wasp larvae (maggots), but they are a bit too large for most of the fish.

I've swapped back to the PondMax 8000 to reduce system energy use a bit, and now need to run the pump a bit longer now to fill the GBs each cycle at the reduced flow rate. The AP system is currently consuming 1.4kWh/day with the small air pump running full time, and the water pump mostly running 20-30 mins/hour, and I'm not using the big air pump ATM, as it just isn't required with the small Murray Cod.