Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hehehe I do, I was just wondering if there was another way around it :-)

Have completely butchered the tommies and enclosed them in chicken wire. 43 set fruit on 8 plants with a further 2 tiers of unset flowers on each plant. Pollinating these daily with the famous chook feather. Will post a pic tonight. They really do look ugly but ya gotta be cruel to get the yield. Can now underplant them with lettuce.

Picking one zuch/day from 3 plants, lettuce as needed and one small pumpkin/week from 3 plants

Well I think I can let the cat out of the bag. The 400 Silvers KP got were mine. Just home from delivering them to him. They were the ones I got from Glenwaters in Mid September at 50mm each. Most are now in the 60-80mm range, a quarter over 80mm with some shooters to 100mm. A few stragglers not much larger than when I got them.
The new fish delivery vessel got a very good first up work out. Couple little bugs that are easily ironed out for next time, all bar one jumper survived the trip.

I had to move a fair bit of water around to get the big tank to a stage where i could net them. Bloody handy having ballvalve taps all over the place. Made things a lot easier. Out of about 3500lts moved, 500lts finished up on the back lawn. Everything else was retained in various bins/tanks. Have added a 1000lts of tank water to the fish tank for the breeders and there is now one empty milkvat.

I must admit to a touch of regret as I was netting the fish for KP. Without exception they were in absolutely pristine condition. Not a mark on them, no fin issues, no nothing. Ah well, they have gone to a good home.

It was a win-win for us both. KP needed fish and I needed to transfer my breeders to a bigger tank. It brings my spawning program fwd 12 months. I will prolly run spawning at home, alongside the hatchery course first semester at college. I intend to spawn in the milk vat and transfer the breeders back to the big tank. It is my understanding the fry will survive on cysts b4 taking commercial crumble. Aquasonic now have a concentrated algal paste that the fry get on as soon as they absorb their yolk sac. I reckon a combo of that and the cysts should give them a good start.
Time to read what everyone else has been doing today.

Did you clove oil them TT.... or just net them and transfer them to the "delivery" tank???

Post a pic and explanation of the "delivery" tank if you haven't done so already please mate.

No clove oil Rupe, just netted them. Pics of a converted old kelvinator freezer at the bottom of the previous page. 20 bucks, 10 minutes work, piece *kittens* what.

Thanks TT... I remember the freezer now

freezer looked good and worked well. All fish (barring the one TT let jump down behind some wine bottle pallets to it's death) looked great and healthy. I put some in my indoor tank (I have to remove later or they will upset my bristlenose ) and I'm risking it.

TT - why do you think they grew so little since September, or is this normal growth rate for small silvers. As a comparison, I got my Barra in 3rd week of October and at that point hey were tiny (25mm). The majority would now be over 10cm, with some bolters possibly as long as 15??

just the breed vb. In 3 months, most of them have doubled their weight/size. In 100 days there would have been perhaps 20 days where the water temp exceeded 20C for the 24 hour period. They are after all a warm water finfish. Barra are a completely different prospect growth wise. I guess that is why they are the developing recirc or sea cage species in warmer regions. (Along with yellow tail kingfish which even leaves barra for dead growth wise!)

I guess that is why we have a million trout farms down here and no silver perch ones.

yeah that's likely TT.
But think, SP are different, surely you could charge a little more than trout...

feel free to send me more money.
For the record:
I did not LET the fish jump out on purpose. I in fact provided a few extra fish in the event there was a first time unforseen fubar.
I DID however spend 9 hours of my time from the minute I started moving water around at 1pm to when I arrived home at 10pm. My sole focus at that time was delivering well cared for fish to you, in pristine condition, and for that you are most welcome.
I am sorry if the jumper irks you, next time i will wear my wicketkeeping gloves and catch it.

Hey dude, all is light hearted
It's sad sure, but hey. Life's life
Please, no offence is intended, and I am VERY happy with the little fishies, no buyer's remorse here, no sir.
Sorry if it was misconstrued, emotion and tone is so hard to portray on here sometimes. :-)
PS They all look happy, and there were non in the basket filter this morning

Wicketkeeper gloves! Hah! really would be in 'slips' then hey?

Hey TT, i know is goes without saying, and the freezer was prolly on an open tray anyway, but careful with the o2, yeh? a 100% 02 atmosphere can make things catch fire if you stare at them for too long..............................

yah O2 nasty, Steve. TT had it in his BIG truck, on very low output, and the truck breathed enough to dispel it I would think.

in general to people though Oxygen in high quantities (not only is toxic to humans) will allow many things to explode that otherwise wouldn't.

Please do be careful with it. Especially in confined spaces

Thanx Steve. The oxy reg i got calibrates down to a few litres a minute. The bit of pipe that goes in thru the freezer lid is a fair bit bigger than the airline to allow for some air release from the freezer during travel. I filled the freezer right up to prevent wave action and was told i needed some sort of air release to prevent the kind of situation u speak of.