Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all

After spending a long time reading without any posting, I thought it was about time to start my first thread.

I was on the net a few months ago when I first came across aquaponics , I was instantly hooked, I had always wanted to grow fish at home, then suddenly it threw in the vege thing which made it even more enticing. Scanning through the pictures of OBO's system going from a bath tub to a full oasis in the back yard was truly inspiring, then I found this forum and was blown away because Backyard Aquaponics was less then a couple of Km's from my house. So after a few visits to them and a stack more reading I finally got some tanks together to start a trial system.

I built a test system, using goldfish to cycle. It is a timed flood and drain with pump on 15minutes every hour. Pictures below. I have a 3,000 litre tank which I will upgrade to once I have done some landscaping work and that will hopefully be ready to start some Barra in summer.

Cheers

Amo

Welcome to the madness.
The GB and Tank look great, did they cost much.

Yep, welcome aboard Amo... keep us posted mate... nice start...

Nice setup there. You might want to put some shade cloth over the fish tank to prevent jumpers getting out and other critters getting in.

Thanks


I cant remember the exact cost of the tanks but the oblong grow bed was around $400.


Thanks, just goldies in there at the moment. Although the first day I had a couple of Koi in and one did jump out (Water level was very high also), luckily my wife saw it on the ground in time and gave it some mouth to mouth . 3 dogs are stopping the birds having lunch.
I thought I might need to cover it to stop the algae, went through the pea soup stage, but it has cleared up at the moment, however when it starts to heat up it may be a problem again.

Definitely the plan to build a cover when I get the big tank going.

Cheers

I haven't been very active in posting, but my test system had been kicking along well, good crop of cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, silverbeet etc.

Fish were going well too. I was probably 1 or 2 weeks away from harvesting, inviting all the friends over to grab a fish and throw it on the BBQ, when I went out last Saturday morning and they were all dead . The water pump had blocked up and the airstone came off the end of the air tube (first time ever).

Very frustrating .

Well here's my question I fed the fish Friday afternoon I went out Saturday morning about 9.30 and they were all dead. I did'nt have time to do anything except throw them in the freezer. Would they be OK to eat?

Probably OK... I've eaten many fish from fishing trips that have been dead for longer than that...

Did you gut them before freezing them??

No We were on our way out so I just put them straight in the freezer.

Oh the irony of the avatar

They should be safe to eat. The downside is that they will likely be very strong tasting due to being frozen whole with the guts. I would suggest brining the fillets for a few days, changing the brine every 12 hours or so, before eating or freezing. It should help a bit with the "fishy" flavor.

Bugger!

So - Amo (G) - have you tried any of them yet? Were they edible or just too much?
Matt

Hi Matt

I couldn't bring myself to do it. The thought of being violently ill put me off. I don't normally eat a lot of fish, that's why I wanted to grow my own to give me more motivation.
It is really disappointing not to eat them, but it would have been be tragic if I did and got really sick , so I erred on the side of caution.

Never mind!!! Trout coming early May

So do you think they just ran out of dissolved oxygen? If the system was trucking along just fine, it would seem a day or two of stillness wouldn't completely kill the fish, plants maybe, but the fish? Do you think it was overstocked for this type of system failure?

I think the stocking rate was a little high, 500-600 grams per fish 22 in total. But the system had been tracking along nicely.
Yeah definitely ran out of oxygen. The water pump was clogged and not working, when I think about it I cannot confirm when I saw it operating last (as it was on a timer) it may have been 1 day earlier. So when the air stone came off there was no oxygen going in at all.