Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Kwieland... I think I caught it in time. It was fine. Tough skin but that is probably the variety of cucumber. I think I need the English soft skin ones. Can't wait to get back there and see how many have expanded.

Hope to pick up a fresh batch of trout this week. I scored a much better transportation vessel. Probably around 800 liters. Will pack lots of ice.

Sounds good Brian - 800L is a lot better than last time - good luck - remember lots of air.

Brian, didn't they pack them with oxygen last time? I know you can buy livewell pumps, but that may be too small for what you need. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Longer-L ... 739587.uts

Kwieland. No, no oxegen. It is very basic out there just some ponds on a river in the mountains and a caravan for the guy who does the feeding. This is Africa . I will take what's left of my gas welders oxygen tank and give a squirt to the fish at intervals along the way. And the air pump of course. That is if this trout guy actually ever lets me know when I can come and collect

I am thinking of attaching another 600liter tank to the system and running a whole lot of koi in there just to keep the nutes up while there are no trout about. Possibly pump from the Ft to the koi tank the through a Slo to a small growbed then back to the tank again and run this on CF and use it as a backup for filtration and aeration in case of main pump failure.

Ok. Totally bizarre! Today I arrived at the system and stared into the tank and there swimming about are 3 healthy rainbow trout that must have somehow survived the kill off and remained hidden from me in a tank with nowhere to hide. Its totally weird. I am gobsmacked! I must have looked longingly into that tank many times in the last mont and did not see a bloody thing. I even drag netted the tank after the incident to check that there where no fish in the tank and came up empty. A real testament to the trout's remarkable ability to hide if it really wants to. They must have been hiding behind the slo upright pipes all this time. Amazing. Not small fish either. Probably about 200 grams or so.

Crazy but not an uncommon thing to happen I think. Some fish are just really hard to see or catch sometimes.

I think they avoid detection by swimming around and around so fast you just can't see them.

I went to fetch more fish. 20 kg trout. Quite big fish already. Probably between 200 and 300 grams. Got them all home without any deaths or incidents. Having a decent quantity of transport water made a big difference.

The farm was pretty amazing. I got to see the hatchery and small baby trout hatching out. The breeding stock where pretty interesting. Huge beat up old males and females in different tanks. Then they had 4 or 5 round brick reservoirs with different size fish in them, large tanks, around 50 000 liters each at a guess and another series of long trough tanks. They produce 65 tons of fish in a season. Pretty impressive stuff. Lots of water moving around.

I will post some pics when I have a internet connection for my pc.

I Had to post them 1 at a time or it froze up .

1st pic is of the hatchery with the trays of eggs.
2nd pic is of the Round tanks used for growing out.
3rd and 4th are of the long channel tanks with wildly rotating paddle wheel aerators/water moving contraptions. Sadly there was nobody about who was particularly keen to explain any of the finer details of the operation to me.

Just so you all know. This was a different trout farm from the previous place I went. Same company though. the other place is the one which is a couple of pools on the river and not much else.

I am now running on a knife edge again. I need to sort out a backup system very soon!

The fish are all happily ensconced in their new home and feeding like crazy!

Looks like they have quite the setup there! I thought trout eggs were clear? What is the red stuff? What do they feed the fry? Ground up stuff? Thanks for sharing - good luck this time. I hope that backup comes on line soon.