Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

they are considered invasive species and are prohibited

Illegal, as they are a pest species here, just like carp.

Not even with a permit??
Going for a hybrid, mostly male offspring, excellent taste, easy to feed and high temp tolerant - perfect fish for AP...

thjakits

Not with a permit, or any other piece of paper!
I really can't imagine they taste any better than rainbow trout anyway.

Depends HOW they were raised. As Tilapia (...in the wild) lives under about any condition possible - the taste is accordingly! Trout vs. Tilapia - at least in tropical climates Tilapia is a whole lot easier to keep alive!

thjakits

4 more trout harvested last night, reasonably consistent in size- largest 738g, average 667g, leaving 24 in the FT. A few cool nights recently have allowed the water temp to drop a bit, and I've more extensively shaded the growing media, so it stays a bit cooler during the day, helped by an occasional water misting.

I'll be taking more fish out tonight and over the next few days, as it looks like we are heading into an early December heat wave of days around 35C. I might leave a few smaller ones in to see what water temps they can cope with, but transfer them to the larger system if they start to look stressed.

The peas have produced massively over the past month or so, but with very few flowers on them now in the warmer weather, and the plants now covered in powdery mildew, I'll be removing them soon. The garlic in the same GB has flower heads forming, so I'll pull them out too, the one harvested so far was quite a decent size.

The extra covering I've put over the GBs is keeping the diurnal water temp range reasonable, and I still have a bit of a buffer before the high temps forecast later this week, however, I suspect I'll have to take the rest out in the near future.



We ate one of the fish I caught a couple of nights ago last night, it was suffering from fin rot, but otherwise ok, but the notable feature was that the flesh was much more pinky/orange than most of the others we have been eating, so I can only assume it has been eating more of the slaters I've been droping in to the FT. There have been quite a lot of them, since GB#1 is infested with them, and when I flood the GB higher than normal, they all come out to escape the water, making them easy to catch. The slaters don't seem to be eating the new turmeric shoots, but did completely demolish the wasabi and eggplants ;(

What species of fish do you rear over summer if any Gordon?

Pete.

Rainbow trout, but only in the big system until the water temperature gets down low enough again in this one. There'll be one Murray Cod in this one over summer though. I've still got >250 RT in the big system ATM, and will have to start on them very soon!

6 more harvested tonight, average 797g, largest 959g, so there should be 18 remaining in the system.



Since the cherries are ripe now, I might invent some cherry and lime sauce to have with one of them

Gordon as you reduce the numbers do you proportionally reduce the feed or just stop feeding when they become disinterested?

Pete.

Yes I've been reducing it as their numbers go down, only feeding 40g per day the past few days, down from 50g before that, and hundreds of grams before I started harvesting.

They often go off their fed a bit the day after the disturbance of catching them.

5 more harvested tonight, I was a bit reluctant to stress them too much with sweeping the net around in the FT, as the water was over 22C, so I'll see how they look tomorrow. They were behaving as they normally do this arvo, swimming around the bottom, so DO is fine, although they weren't interested in the few pellets I dropped in.
2 more hot days forecast, so the water temp might get a bit higher yet.
Largest tonight was 1050g, average 875, which was pulled down by one at 600g. 13 left in there now.

I went looking at maps for your location and wonder if you posted a panorama picture in Loomberah. It looks like one you posted last year.

I took that one quite a few years ago, I wish it was like that this morning! Instead the overnight minimum was 23C, and the forecast is for 39C max today

The water didn't cool down much overnight, so it will ratchet up some more today, but I have reduced daytime pumping times to 5 or 10 mins twice every 3 hours now, with 40 mins twice per 3 hours at night (one of the timers appears to have a stuffed relay). The ST level was rather low, so I started adding some water to the FT, but since the water was warmer than what was in the FT, I stopped after a few mins, hopefully there's enough in there to cover evaporation until things cool down enough.