Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My attempt at using just yabbies for my system didnt work to well, the bioload was too small and since the silly things are too cold to eat much not much help for plants. So I changed things around a bit and have the yabbies in separate containers still hooked up the system and the 500l tub free.

I've been looking at fish, preferably cheap fish since I'm not gonna eat the fish. Anyway the cheapest by far is Koi, can Koi be used? or will there be problems with such a small system? The goldfish end up costing more, though they cost less each they'd put out a lot less bioload then the Koi. I've got 5 goldies that will also be going in the tub, but was just thinking of adding a couple of koi...

Any comments in general on Koi?

Thanks
Emma

Koi would be okay to use, not sure if they are as hardy as goldfish, so you might have to cycle the tank before using them.

Here's some stuff on Koi

was readying in the trading post on the net the other day and it said that like 48 Koi cost like 60,000 and they said that they where selling them for a bargain of 29,000

Lol those are specially bred Koi, nah the ones I'm talking about are just from somones backyard that accidently bred,.

thanks for the link

Personally I'd try mollies... My mollies keep breeding like crazy...

mollies and guppies are good chose koi look good and you could get them come to you with a little training but gold fish are way harder imho

LOl Molly's and guppies need heaters, plus the ones I've found are so inbred they die when you look at em.

Yeah might stick with goldfish, it costs more though Blah.

what about native rainbows? or similar?

The main problem is cost and availability, I don't have much money to put into it, well right now I'm broke so need fairly cheap fish, all the native rainbows etc I've found cost upwards of $10 each.

eeek! we just went and caught some in the creek go down at late afternoon, they're easier to catch

LOL except they arent native to my area. All we get are endless yabbies and dragonfly nymphs. I guess there'd be bigger fish in the Hunter river, but I'd honestly rather get captive bred then wild caught.

Unless I have got the wrong fish, my "guppies" appear to be very hardy and I never had to heat them up during the winter months - I have had guppies for years.

So, are guppies the same as mosquito fish?

Mosquito Fish
Guppies

Mo mosquito fish are different fish, they look like gups etc but arent for some reason LOL, I though mosquito fish were illegal in Aus?

they are, well VIC at least!

and they dont have the lovely colours, do they?