Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

S77 was just looking through the fish w.a site looking for a referance to the yabbie free zone and came up with some interesting news.
Because I can`t do it the easy way,Google yabby free zone, then go to Thelohania,this shows the zoning and a nasty bug that currently is affecting marron and yabbies in different areas.(worth a look mabey?)

Thanks, yeah I ruled that out because my deaths have shown no such symptoms. I have sourced all of my yabbies and marron from either aquariums or a farm located near Baldivis ~30km South of Perth.

How much per head for your marron simmo

Quoted from my other system thread. Prices range f rom $20 per kilo (cheap) to $40 or more. Most farms that I have spoken to will only sell you live legal size marron (ie - not littlies) and have been reluctant when I have mentioned AP. The best quote I got was when I told a little white lie and said I had a small restaurant and wanted to have marron as a special and then he was willing to sell me any size I wanted...

Pet shops charge like wounded bulls and should be avoided at all costs for AP supply of crays.

Isn`t it a shame when you have to lie to get what you want,at the end of the day the marron is probably better of with you anyway.When I get time I will ring a friend and ask where he got his from.I think he paid 33c each for 100 little ones

Tell me more!

as soon as i ring my mate will let all know (next couple of days)

Tell me guys, Being a keen fisho I have for many years gone down to Crooked River and pumped what we call "yabbies" for bait.

Would these be the same species as what everyone is stocking...

Seem a little clearer in colour and smaller than pics of seen here but other than that exactly the same.

To me what I've thought of as yabbies are what is found in inland dams around NSW

all the ones i have pulled from dams have been a tan / brown colour, but most of them clear up to a beauiful blue after a few moults in a clean aquarium

Belatedly, heres a pic of the tank as of this afternoon...



And no, the yabbies that you pump for are different to what we are talking about Rupe, let me search for a bit and I will find out the difference. The yabbies I have are Cherax Destructor.

Well, they might be the same (http://users.tpg.com.au/dtdan/yabpump.htm), but I'm pretty sure the ones that are pumped for at the beach or river mouth for fishing bait are slightly different to Cherax Destructor anyways.

This afternoon I separated 4 berried females from the rest of the population in the tank and set them up a new home in a spare 4' indoor aquarium I had. I'm sure there are more in there, but I didn't want to have too many yabbies and nowhere to house them. If I do a good job with it, the fry from these four females will be more than enough.



The photo isn't that good, I couldn't get one close enough so you could see the eggs, but I could clearly see the berried females as I moved their hides around in the tank. They all walked around with their tails curled up in like the girl in the pic, and typically were in the darkest of hidey holes away from the large males. The females in the pic are all quite small, averaging around 7-8cm in length, perhaps longer cause they are holding their tails in...

Ok, that's what I thought in as much as I've never really pumped one bigger than about 8-10cm, but I've heard that half a dozen "yabbies" fished for in inland dams would be a feed

Pity, cause it only takes about 30 mins to get half a bucket

3 of my girls have had their babies hatch, there is just the one last girl who still has her eggs. She hardly comes out of her hide (the leftmost yabby in the pic above), and has stacked up a bunch of shells to act as a 'door' to her house. I've already moved the other 3 girls back to the outdoor tank, they were easy to catch after they released the young as they were spending much more time foraging around on the bottom of the tank rather than hiding.

It is impossible to count them, but I have at least 60 small yabbies all around the bottom of the tank with maybe another 20 odd yet to hatch.

yay! Congratulations Daddy!