Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Situated in sunny Sydney on the eastern seaboard of Australia I’m tired of buying seafood or chasing it in the sea. Even prawning gets me yawning despite the easy feed every spring.
So now to grow my own crustaceans.
I thought of doing prawns but they’re a bit fiddly, so yabbies are a hardy local bunch that might just survive my ham fisted attempt to grow and then kill them.

I’ve got a 5000 litre poly tank and any number of OTTO or SULO bins for filters so my question is ...

Can I follow the basics of indoor tabby keeping and just provide a filter and aeration and food ?

Thank you for any advice or suggestions.

If you provide sufficient bio-filtration to convert all the Ammonia and Nitrite to Nitrate, you will still need something to remove the Nitrate and other nutrients from the water, ie: Plants. Otherwise you will have to go down the full aquaculture route, ie: Regular partial water changes.

Thanks for the information Mr Damage, I think I might work on the idea of having water plants to recreate natural pond or dam environment.
There’s not a lot of specific information bout farming yabbies on their own so I thought I’d strike out and see how hard it is.
I’ve got a solar pump system constantly working through a 200 litre bin full of media to create a biological filter over the next few months. There’s plenty of detritus in the polybtank and the rain water has a pH of 6.8 at the moment.
The pumped water also goes through solar heating tubes and the tank gets about 7 hours of direct sunlight but it’s above ground so loses heat quickly.

Lots to learn but I’m up for the challenge.
If you’re in Australia give me a call and let’s see if we can grow our own seafood.

sounds like an interesting and exciting challenge. I think yabbies are generally omnivorous so they should graze on any plants that are present. How about including a seperate tank for growing some kind of pondweed and periodically throwing a clump into the yabby tank for them to graze on?

I reckon its worth giving some thought to buffering if you havent already as they'll need a well buffered pH and good amount of carbonates for growth due to rquirements for the shell moults, and rainwater wont have any carbonates in it.

Hi Danny, good advice thank you. Yes I’ve got a basic plan of keeping live plants for feeding as well as taking any berried females out and allowing the eggs to hatch in a separate tank. Culling the biggest Crays out so they don’t feed on their kids.
I was thinking of using oysters shells to up the carbonate quality? Would that be enough do you think ? I’ll have to visit an aquarium shop to discuss as well. But any advice is most welcome.

Here’s the setup, a 5000 litre poly aboveground tank with a pump taking water into a garbage bin full of shade cloth as a filter , then through 20 metres of black tubing to heat the water and then splashed back into the tank.
I also built a cube with 40 mm water pipe and layered 10 levels with shade cloth to add more living space for the little critters, there’s now about 450 square feet of room for them.

Any thoughts ?

So while the 200 Cherax Destructors are enjoying their new home I thought I’d look at some sort of suburban farming technique for Redclaw. And this is to farm them for food for the family.
The plan is to have a number of 200 litre ponds and selectively control the breeding.

The first pond has craylings that stay for the first few months.

Second pond is for Selected and segregated juveniles so that they can’t randomly reproduce, but choose the biggest Craylings to go into this pond.

Third pond is for Selected large juveniles to go into a grow out pond to grow to about 1 year old.

Forth pond has the final broodstock which can be segregated or allowed to randomly breed to keep a wide genetic mix. It’s also where the ones chosen for the BBQ will languish.

When the berried females are ready the craylings go to pond 1.

Any thoughts ? I’ll post pics as I build it.