Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I find that I do best with a large landing net rather than these dainty "don't hurt my prize koi" type nets. The finer the mesh, the slower the net moves through the water. Regrettably, the husband's landing net is getting bigger and bigger holes in it. Held together with twist-ties right now. Come Spring I need to go to K-Mart to get a new landing net.

The Jade looks great. I have 4 tilapia in the purging tank right now, waiting for the New Year.

Hi Janet,
Yes - I'm curious how other people catch their fish. My 10,000 litre tank makes hand netting impossible. Maybe I should build some kind of fish trap..
I would prefer not to hook them if they turn out to be too small and should be thrown back.

How big are your tilapia? taste good?
Too bad they are illegal over here.

I really liked some1's idea in another thread, to make cages within the tank containing the fish, that can be removed. this would make it very easy to gauge/grade, and harvest.

The tilapia are approaching 500g now, and taste delicious. Much better than the stuff you get frozen in the grocery.

How about one of those circular weighted throwing nets? Like you see used in the surf?

They'd get all caught up in a cast net and you are likely to do damage to the ones that you want to return using this method :-/

Get a net
Weighted at one end floats on the other, cords attached to the weighted end.
Drop the net 1 side of the tank and drag the net ( via cord connected to the weighted end) to the other side of the tank, when lifting the weighted end out of the tank you can easily throw unwated fish back into the tank and havest the fish you want.
Cheers
Ron

a drag net

Great idea about the built-in cage Kuda. I'll have to think about that for the next incarnation of my system
I don't think anything involving dragging a net would be good for me - my tank is an above ground pool with a liner - the liner is pretty fragile.
So Jaymie - you use a drag net?
How big are your fish? Up there they must grow a lot faster than in Brisbane. Mine hibernated over winter. I guess yours would be feeding all year round? Do you check your water temperature?


Cheers
Jamie

I posted how we catch ours in the Catching Thread

Get a large scoop net. You can get them made for surf fishing that are about 1M in diameter. Put the net in the water, dump your feed over the net. Lift net quickly with fish.....

Hiya,
I have been reading Jaymies pages and the temperature difference between there and South Brissy obviously makes a huge difference to growth rates. Caught my biggest Jade yet last sunday 530gm, with an average size around 400gm. I got them jan 5th 2007, (30mm).

Mind you a 400gm Jade is a decent meal, so we have been having smoked fish every sunday for months now.
I have been catching around 6 fish every sunday morning. I use a very light rod with bread for bait. That gives 12 good fillets that I then marinate in brown sugar and salt for 2-3 hours and then smoke. delicious, with incredible amounts of fat dripping out.
I feel so much more intelligent afterwards

Lost 10 fish over winter. The water temperature got down to 9.4c, so that was to be expected considering the literature says you get "mass deaths" under 13c. Lost the first two right at the beginning of winter when the temperature suddenly dropped, and lost a couple more right at the end of winter when the temperature suddenly went above 18c and they started to feed again.
I suspect the spike in nutes was too much for the bacteria population, which must have contracted over the lean low-nutes winter months.
Anyway, things back to normal now.
had problems contacting the Growbest guys down in Beenleigh (have they shut up shop?) and ordered in some Ridleys Native 4mm from the local Feedstock shop in Browns Plains - $67.00 for 25Kg - not cheap, but good looking food.

I guess I must have about 70-80 jades left now (from 200). Lost in total about 30 and ate the rest.
I have just built a little 450litre quarantine setup for some new fingerlings that should be just about ready at SEQfish.
Just need to add 1.5kg of salt and it'll be all ready.
I am contemplating breeding my own fingerlings in this setup as well. The guy at the local aquarium shop tells me he can inject a pair of adults with hormones to get an immediate response - production of eggs and sperm within 24 hours.

I built a couple of unsuccessful solar heaters over winter. I shall try harder this time, and maybe achieve the kinds of weights jaymie is getting up there. Just need to keep the water temperature above 18c!

Cheers
Jamie