Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I thought polar bears liked the icy conditions

I know Bundy likes rum

Rupe,

How are the trout looking this morning mate? Any floaters?

Two DOA... one looking a bit sick...

All the rest feed like piranascthis morning... waiting on trailer availability to schedule deliveries...

Trout really are a fun fish.... but stupid....

Knew they would probably think the outlet from the barrels was a waterfall... and would try and "work their way upstream"... so I covered them accordingly...

I just forgot about covering the outlets from the filter boxes....

Hehehe...

Has anyone heard from Rup? He must be doing the Trout run. Has anyone one got any reports that have received their fish.
I cant wait, woo hoo

he is delivering either today or tommorow, not sure but im sure ull here from me when they arrive

Bree

Have spoken to Rup he is preparing for the big run. My fish cant be delivered today as my tanks readings are spiking at the moment you can see in my thread "how's my tests look"

Yeh you gotta watch that....
Trout like to swim up a stream of water, go the cover

Well it's been a long weekend... and things didn't go completely to plan..

Sunday morning I went to hook the oxy bottle onto the trailer and the bin... and couldn't find the adapter for the flow meter and airline connection...

Found a couple of connections that together fitted and did the job, but a little loosely...

Seemed to be working OK, so I started netting the trout into the bin for the deliveries to Newcastle... all up about 400...

And noticed the bubbles from the air stone seemed very slow... checked the flow meter... and I obviously had a leak somewhere...

Called my mate Trevor, a plumber and gasfitter... who arrived, hummed & harred a couple of times... and shot off home to see what he could put together..

With no air going into the tank, the lid having been off for a couple of hours while I was ferrying the fish into the tank... and a warmish day... the fish were starting to rise to the surface...

So netted them back out of the bin and back into the tank...

Mal and Scott turned up to collect their fish... followed shortly after by Trev (the plumber) who had managed to braise a couple of connections together with a short piece of copper tubing that did the job...

Bagged up 25 fish for Mal and 50 for Scott who both headed off down to Jervis Bay...

Decided that the Newcastle run might be a bit dubious... at least until I'd had a chance to test out the oxy connections... and it was getting to be a bit late anyway..

Cancelled the the Newcastle people, loaded up another 130 for Neil (fishfodder) and Geoff around Wollongong way.

Didn't have a chance to grab any photos at Neils... but here's a couple of the trout settling into Geoffs tank...


End of day one... 200 trout delivered... all settled in with no reported casualties...

Monday, day two.... still tossing up about heading for Newcastle with about 400 trout and an uncertain airconnection... and the prospect of spending hours trapped in traffic returning to Sydney after the long weekend, (both up and back) ...

Decided to drop the Sydney deliveries... which by the time I got to Darrel (rainwatertanks) would have meant a circumnavigation of Sydney...

Spoke to Darrel and discussed his morning test levels... a nitrite level of 5.0... in a new cycling system... and a max stocking level... so cancelled him out...

Loaded about 200... and dropped to new member Terry D and RegattaDJ....

While I was replacing the tank lid when leaving RegattaDJ's ... I noticed the oxy bottle pressure had dropped off to almost empty... and that the airline was basically dribbling bubbles intermittently...

Mad dash from Rydalmere across to Fish&vege's place at Noth Ryde... with a detour via Killara (I punched Northcott Avenue into google maps... instead of Northcott Street... )... and a few circles and u-turns...

Got to Virgils (fish&vege) and dropped his 50 off around 17:00...

End of Day two... another 200 fish delivered... no reported fatalities...

Lessons learned... make sure you enter the right addresses into google... don't get lost...

Don't turn the oxy up so high... it'll last longer... and as there wasn't any flow at all for about an hour... the fish will probably be fine...

At least, with the previous days run and this one... I had an indication of how long the bottle would last in terms of flow for the time and distance travelled... and that the conenctions were good...

Decision to postpone Newcastle again had proven to be a good choice as well... as even heading up to Sydney, it took me at least 1-2 hours longer than expected due to traffic..

Had to get another oxy bottle today... and return the trailer, which I can't get again until Thursday at the earliest... and I was becoming concerned that I might have been short supplied with the trout... and figured I might have to drain down the tank and get a count of just how many I had left...

Think that a couple of days chasing them around with a net, had frightened them into a corner and down low in the tank... as today I could see a lot more that yesterday...


Stephen Dunn and a group of students from the Highlands School are coming down tomorrow to have a look at the aquaponics setup.. and to collect 50 trout...

So the Newcastle trip will now be either Thursday.... or the weekend.. I'll ring you guys tomorrow (Wednesday) and discuss...

And the new air pumps arrived today as well (Bree).... twin outlet rechargeable 6v battery backup.... 10 hours at full volume or 20 hours at the alternate setting of 15 min on / 15 min off...

Inbuilt recharger means battery will recharge when mains power comes back on...

Look to be a damn good battery backup air pump... only bugger is that the supplier increased the price by about 15% today...

Oh... and the other drama... the supplier was meant to deliver 4 bags of feed... and only brought 2 bags up with him...

So everyone has been rationed until I can organise more feed in...

Aaah, the joys of a fish reseller