Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

No side effecs had a dozen one night only 4 worked

Boom Tish

Hi Janet,

I believe that somewhere you mentioned that you got some wasabi plants, I was just wondering how they were fairing?

Himzo

Hi Himzol,
The wasabi all died when Spring got warm. Tilapia like warm water anyway, so I think it was a bad combination. Trout with wasabi would be better. The 18-24 month grow-out for wasabi makes things complicated, too. Your summers would have to remain cool enough to keep from wilting the wasabi.

Thanks Janet,

Bummer about the wasabi, I was hopeing to try it, but I think the South Australian Summer might just be a tad warm...generrally a lot of days over 30C and several over 40C just for fun..

thanks again,

H.

Typically any feed store will have shell available by the pound/kilo, at least here in the US. Any place that caters to chicken owners must have some calcium carbonate supplement.

I would think that most shells would work as well as a ph buffer with allowances for surface area: oyster shells seem to be quite friable and crush into thin plates so would have large sa. I'm sure quahog/littleneck/scallops would work fine for you, Janet. I may toss some abalone shells into my system, although the protein layers may protect the calcium carbonate from the water, further reducing effective surface area.

Thanks Hydrophilia, and welcome to the forum! I did go ahead and put some littleneck/topneck clam shell pieces in the growbeds, and my friend is going to bring me some of her oyster shell. I'll try both.

Maybe you could rough up the abalone shell with a pumic stone or something. Or break them up finely.

Yum yum yum...dinner was:

4 AP tilapia, cut into 8 fillets. Crumbed and fried. (My first time filleting, and it was easier than a standard no-head/no-guts/no scales cleaning!!! Woohoo!!!!!)
Tartar sauce with home-canned pickle relish.
Candied sweet potatoes from the dirt-garden.
Home-canned dilly (pickled) green beans from Mom and Dad's garden.
Home-canned applesauce with apples from the backyard or else the nearby orchard. Wasn't sure which batch I grabbed.

Husband had seconds on the fish . Girls licked their plates clean, of course.

well done Janet

Darn, I wish I had been there.... Nothing better than fried fish. Unfortunately my wife doesn't let me eat anything fried anymore.

mate, crumbed fish is awesome, go Janet. Jazz dude, time to get a new wife

Good one Janet
...need to set up my AP gates shortly to catch some of my large(r) SP for xmas
...hope they taste as good as you describe your AP fish dinners :smackslips:

Well, after trying unsuccessfully for some time now to get the breeders cranked up again, I upped the stakes. The male had nearly killed his gals several times, requiring separation for healing. As a result, the gals wanted nothing to do with him. Per commercial breeding practices, I trimmed the upper lip of my breeding male with kitchen shears. Husband assisted, and things went amazingly smoothly. And as predicted in the hatchery manual, the male was ready for business immediately afterwards, although now he can't nip the gals. In addition, I removed the more timid female, returning her to the main grow-out tank. I netted out 2 additional females for the male to woo, one of which was pinkish in her nether regions. That should mean she is full of eggs. The other new "female" may or may not be, but time will tell. So now "Larry the Lipless Lounge Lizard" has a new and bigger Love Shack, and a total of 2-3 gals.

As long as I was stirring things up, I also netted 4 big fish out of the main tank and put them aside in the spare breeder tank to purge. I've never bothered to purge before, but since I had the tank space, I figured I would try it. Looking at them carefully, I think I pulled out 2 males and 2 females, so I will watch them while they are purging to see if I need to swap females around. One of the males is an absolute monster. In truth, I think I can tell male from (unripe) female better by lip/mouth size than by examining nether regions. The males have huge mouths (well, except for Larry), although you would think it would be the females that did since they use their mouths as incubators.

Plant-wise, I have been adding more tropical plants, but am retaining the sunniest bed for edibles. I put some culinary ginger in there, and it has started to sprout. I have eggplant seedlings started too, and will transplant them into the gravel next month.

I was able to get the crushed oyster shell from my friend, and have added that to the system. Although I still add some potassium bicarb, I don't have to be as careful about that. Still have to watch the pH, of course.

Oh do tell! I have always had people prepair the fish for me.

How do you fillet a tilipia?

somebody posted a fish filleting link which i have bookmarked DanD. http://www.nesa.co.uk/Articles/how_to_fillet_fish.html . Hope this helps. linking advice provided by Greenhouse Fish!