Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Met, I tried to do it now but it just didn't work well. It is dark in their area and when I turned on the lights they went crazy. they are in a round glass jar and I can't get a clear photo. I don't know if the red streak was a panic streak of blood rush or the fish at this time. I think we have at least 2 species in there.

Next time we go we will be better prepared and I will take photos of them fresh out of the pond. This might be in the morning if we feel up to it again. The wife says it's a go so I guess we are off fishing again. For the fingerlings we used a basic cheap fish trap that we never used before. We made it. It is a 5 liter water bottle cut off at the top about 1/3 down where the diameters are the same and then the cap is tossed and the top inverted into the bottom and tied to the bottom half.

I used a hole punch to make the connection holes. In some places fish traps are illegal so be careful. We were on private land. I then drilled holes in the bottom half and added some rocks and pellet fish food. Took off for 2 hours and checked it later..

That was too much time, should have been only 15 minutes or 30 at the most. There were so many fish in the bottom half they must have had a hard time and half of them died right in the catch. Some more croaked on the way home due to no air. Once all were in the glass jug and an air pump stone on full, we have lost none of them.

Already they are going crazy over the pellet food. Like they never ate in their life before. All of a sudden FOOD and all they can eat. It was a mini frenzy for sure. The green and silver ones have a red spot over their eyes and the others kinda resemble a tiger barbs color pattern but with out the wing fins. I will take photos outside next time and we can figure out what they are. Maybe.

I put a plastic plant in the jug and all the shrimp got in it in less then a minute and have taken up defensive positions now. The PVC Small sections I dropped in the bottom were good for them at first until the fish figured out how to swim thru them at full speed and blow the shrimp right out of the tubes. Smart fish. I guess I would need to cap the tubes. but then they might get trapped in there. Free lunch for the fish. I had one dead shrimp when I got home and I dropped it in the goldfish tank. It was gone before it hit the bottom.

I am hoping that these fish will stay small and I can fit more in a smaller FT for the condo AP unit. They look really tasty even at this size. With my luck they will grow out to over a foot in 3 months and I will have fish everywhere. The little blue gill looking fish did that. In the wild here the largest I have seen them is 4 inches. In the pond they went to over a foot in 3 months. Food for free. Well I just got the orders from the commander. Build a second trap and we are off to the pond again in the morning. Fully prepared with battery air pumps and a holding tank.

If I can breed these green fish I would be really happy. I don't know for sure yet what I am going to do if I come home with 100 fingerlings. They will be everywhere. They are too small to be put in the Goldfish tank. The Gold fish look at them as food. they ate the one I tried in a minute. I don't know why they tore it apart so fast. It is not like I never feed them. They get fed 3 times a day. My Gold fish have turned into sharks.

Sounds good Deuem
Would like to see photos of the system.
Native fish can be a good cheep way to start, low cost and acclimatised to local conditions.
From my experience goldfish never stop eating, that's everything !
Good luck

well, I am sill in testing and the parts are all over the house and balcony. As things go together I will try and document it. I am currently trying my best to put together test 3. Which is a wall unit in a book case. I think I stated this somewhere that all my work depended on if I could start from seed. That put me back several months with massive failures. Now I can grow most any seed I need so that is one major problem down. Since I can't buy starter plants, I had no real choice. Have not found fingerlings for sale either so I had to go out and find them also. This is like a big puzzle to do this here.

We went to 2 different places today and the first took 2 hours to get 1 fish and 3 shrimps. The second place is loaded with new spans that are about 1/2 inch to 1-1/2 inches. This time we tried 4 times for 15 minutes each and caught about 20 to 30 each time. I brought the battery air pumps with me this time and every single fish or shrimp made it home and into its tank. I still need top work on the photos. The green fish do have a red stripe down the length of the belly. Very nice to look at. This time I think we got at least 4 different species in all. And 2 different shrimp species. The shrimp colony is slowly growing again for us. So we had some fun today. I had so many of the fish that I had to put them in with the gold fish and they are pouty now. Overwhelmed by strangers swimming in large schools of 20 to 30 at a time. That is cool to watch no matter how many times I see it. Out of the 80 + fish 20 were so small they got put in with the shrimp. One of the bigger shrimps has already caught one and is having dinner now.

*sings* It's the circle of li~i~i~iiiiife~~

We went to take some photos and for some reason all of the green and the red strip has turned silver. Maybe afraid? They are after all in with the shark goldfish. maybe 20 times their size. I would be scared also. Will need to do a head count in the morning. We were in a panic at the catch to get them into the air bottle because of the kill we had the first time. I think they are some kind of Chinese Mountain Minnow. We have now found this same fish in 3 places. 2 in wild streams and one a mountain fed pond.

Ok, some crapy photos to share:

Bamboo: Someone on this site questioned bamboo and water. I took this photo right at the edge of a pond and all around the pond were clusters of it. In the mountains we can use it as a compass to where the water is. They only grow over or in the small streams. It can grow very tight and one can not pass between them. It is not uncommon to see a bunch of a hundred or more all clustered together. very rarely do you see a single plant. The people here buy and eat the baby bamboo sprouts. I don't know the cost yet but will work on it. They eat them when they are from 3 to 5 inches tall and in seed trays. It looks like grass at that point.




Wild Seeds: Recently I talked about the fact my wife found a plant that went to seed and the both of us planted about 100 seeds. Mine are growing in the AP style wicking tray and hers in the dirt are still doing nothing. We were back at that location and I found this small plant breaking thru joint in the concrete sidewalk. So this is what I have growing now. Over 100 sprouts. It will have a very small, nice pink/purple flower. But hundreds of them like wheat on a stalk.



Alien Green Minnows: The picture is up and really crappy. Every time I get near enough to shot my gold fish hog the photo. They follow me everywhere. But at least you can see the shape. And I will add a mark up next.



Alien Markup:

In this photo I marked up the fish as I have seen it fresh out of the water.
From the fin behind the gill, straight back there is a bright red stripe.
The belly is silver.
the mid area is a very colorful green with silver high lights.
The top half of the body is yellowish brown like a tiger barbs color
The blackish vertical stripes ( 5 on the average ) are very similar to the tiger barb again. But they all have a different pattern, kinda like finger prints for fish. The last stripe #6 is more like a patch of color. right at the beginning of the tail area. The tail and all fins are transparent so far.
Right over the eye slightly to the rear is a red round dot. It never goes away.
I have seen these fish turn stealthy in a heartbeat.
They seem to be able to turn off every color except the eye on demand. I had one in the lens ready to shoot and the big carp came on head to head with it and it instantly changed camo colors to all silver.
When the colors are on you can see the brilliant green from across the room and the red stripe looks like they are bleeding. At first we both thought we had injured them.

So who knows what they are? If and when I can get a good photo I will post it.

Well, the internet has failed me, I've got no idea of what these are except 'cute'. Hopefully someone else will have a better idea!

I am beginning to think that the colorless ones are either really scared out of their scales or they are the female fish. Yet when then came out of the pond all I remember is all green fish. Maybe the males re-display faster as a protection/fighting mode. When I pull the clear bucket out of the water and all we see is green we know we have a catch. I will try to look them up here. It may be possible that someone stocked that pond and the other places we just found escapees from other stocked ponds. They were not on the same water run. If it is stocked, then the fish should get a lot larger so people could catch them with a line and hook and I owe some one some money. Which I would gladly pay for. If it is stocked then the owner must know what they are and where I can get more for other AP projects.
Everyone that comes over quizzes me about the AP I am working on. I feel that at least 3 to 4 friends want to do the same but all are waiting to see if I fail or pass the test.

Right now out of more then 100 of them, one is in full color and I cant seem to catch him on film. The Gold fish are trained to follow me so every time I get near the tank they spook the minnows out of frame. lol

I also searched the net with no luck.

A couple more terrible photos for all.

This is the largest Mountain Shrimp we caught and he/she is now atop of a plastic plant standing guard over the slaves below him/her. if any of the smaller ones head for the top they get tossed back down off the throne. All of them even the smallest are very territorial and will fight for an area they take over. The King is about 2 inches ling tail to claw. as far as I know it is an adult. Breeding size for sure. Maybe some of you might call it a crayfish. But they get much larger and we have them here also.



On the Alien Minnows:
Here you should be able to make out more of the green topside and the red stripe. They are lightning fast and my camera very slow. So still working on a great shot. You can also see the fish next to it has no green or red showing but the vertical lines are there. The monster in top frame is the white carp. The tank is void of all gravel and the white stuff on the tank floor is very small parts of gravel. Believe me it was not there before. It must have come out of the guts of the gold fish. The plants are all plastic and in there just to give the Alien Minnows some where to hide if needed. It is just a bluff for them. If the carp wanted to he could blast right thru any of them to get a free supper. Yet we still have the smallest one in the tank. 1/4 inch long. It would be just a snack for him. I figure at some point in time he will try one and then I will be minnowless in days with a fat carp that has a big smile.

The closest fish I could find on the internet is the Strandzha-minnow. But I have 3 problems with this exact fish.
1) It is from Belgium. 2) It is on the endangered species list. 3) It does not have the red dot over the eye.

Close but no cigar. Might be in the same or similar family.



The photo does show that females lack a lot of the color yet have the barbs. If the red stripped ones are males as I am thinking then my males now are smaller then the females except one of them is the same. Maybe in the wild the females find or eat more food then the males and it takes them more time to grow. It did mention that the moment they show colors they are mature enough to mate. Our fish are greener further up, all the way to the fin, with clear vertical stripes and the red stripe is not broken.

I am presuming now that they will be live bearing fish and there must be many mom and dads in the pond that are too large to get into the fish traps. Egg fish out produce live bearers by far so in order to have that many kids in the pond there has to be a lot of parents or it was stocked with small fry. If it was stocked then that means there is a market for them and a reason. The reason being they must grow large enough to fish and eat or to be used some where as bait fish.

We have never had so many of the same fish in our tank so it has been a lot of fun watching them school, break and re-school with others.

Deuem,

I live in western China, so am interested in how you are doing aquaponics.
I have quite a big balcony (4mx4m) and am thinking of doing some sort of gutter system.

I too want to grow some of my own food so I know its safe.

I was just wondering what you feed your fish? Have you found a good source of feed that isn't suspect?

Thanks

David

Hi, I am simply using the same pellet food that they use for the Koi pond fish and keeping my fingers crossed that it is OK. For the small fish I bought a wooden mortar and petal and I grind up the pellets by hand to feed them a broken food. For babies/fry I grind this to powder. So far I have never had a problem with it killing the fish. Been using them for over 10 years.

At some point in time you could make your own food but for now I don't need that problem also. Everything gets the same feed. When I buy it I get 3 flavors, 1/2 Kg of each and mix it up in a bag. It is about 4, 5 & 6 rmb per pound or 500 grams. You can buy it in 50 kg bags but that would last me 10 years. All the fish still go nuts over it, even after eating it everyday for years so I guess they like it. I have raised baby guppies on it and you know how small they are. All the food is brown in color. I do not buy the blue and red colored pellets. From time to time, maybe once a month or more I toss in some frozen worms. They come in little packs like the OTC drugs do and I pop out a few cubes and toss them in.

So I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will not fake this food. I get it from a fish store. The same one for 10 years and he uses it for his Koi. He has a lot more to lose then I do. So I can somewhat trust that source to buy from. Just one of them is worth more then my entire AP setup with fish. Find someone like that.

My balcony is maybe 60% of yours, same length and it already has the wives plants all over it. I have snuck mine in where ever I could fit them. (seedling cups) As far as what to do, what system? I am looking into more of a vertical setup for my final test 4. The amount of room per plant goes way up. All my tests are vertical except the seed trays or single seedlings. They go in a T5 lit bookcase for now In wicking beds. So, go up to 2 meters and cram a lot more in per m2. My new test 4, I started designing/working on, only yesterday will have a very small foot print and should have 38 to 41 spots to grow. All in 0.75 sq.

Nothing I have designed so far will even come close to 40 plants in 3/4 m2. I had also wanted to do NFT on the balcony railing. That still is an option But I might get more plants in the same area going vertical. Put them right between the steal posts every 150mm or so. Make a wall in the fence. I am doing buckets for carrots because they need a lot of depth. Will also use buckets for broccoli and tomatoes. The buckets are also vertical over a FT and only use air to pump water. They are not hooked to the FT system so I can play with the NPK and not kill the fish. Once I have some idea on NPK and fish they are pre plumed to attach if needed. My Pumpkin will go this way also Just not over a tank. Maybe over the washing machine area. We need to use the room as best we can in the Condo Farming.

My biggest problem by far is water. All available sources are polluted.

Good Luck,
From the other side of China,
Deuem

On the new minnow like fish, it seems like they are calming down more every day. The ratio of green coming back is improving daily. I now see a lot more green in the tank. If these are minnows and live bear fish I might have 3 to 4 pregnant mommies. Like guppies I can now see small dark/black patches in the under belly area where they come out. So I am hoping for new kids to show up in a month or so. That would be great. An endless supply of AP fish I could also sell off to other APers or to the fish stores.