Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

course is satdays + a few sundays............he works then.

no probs with slotting in water time! he's going down to the bay tonight, spear fishing in the morn and then driving back for a 2pm shift

lol 50 years old

Marine enthusiasts believe it or not are very interested in the temperate and oddball marine fish, any joe bloggs from down the street can buy a occelaris clownfish. They want a fish that strikes awe and amazement.

Sharks are the biggest pains in the but and not too good when they are hidden 90% of the time oh and they jump Kelp as i think i posted somewhere here before are very very hard to keep alive even to the point of harvesting much.

That is a purple tipped elegance coral (cataphyllia) worth a fair bit, good eye for detail steve. I also have a green bubbletip anemone, a white bubbletip anemone and a heap of zoathids one of my favorite corals. Also note to any marine keepers or soon to start up marine hobbyists... do not get a anemone they are annoying and move to much even get stuck in propellers from powerhead ahaha

CRTreeDude the ocean is 70% of the world or something they don't have to deal with high levels of protein. Just like in freshwater there is no such thing as death by ammonia in the wild But i don't know everything so their must be something using up the protein.

Nic

Isn't a lot of the protein basically in the form of "krill" and other such organisms...?????

Whales and other similar "filter feeders" consume vast amounts of it....

Heh... maybe that's what the Japanese pseudo-sceintists are studying

also dont get an anemone cause its a slow painfull death for them , regardless of how great your water parameters may be

and any Joe Bloggs from down the street SHOULD be buying occelaris clowns- captive bred ones !
thats where I see your system working wonders Nic - breed all the species that newbs off the street buy , and kill , to stop them buying and killing wild caught fish

I know thats a tall order with the difficulties of breeding marine species' ( unless ive been out of the hobby that long / not into it as much as I should have been when I was ) , but hell , the markets there

My other thought when I read the start of youre thread nic was - "Mulloway or something big"
not that I know 2 thirds of stuff all about breeding barra , but they swim out to sea to change to female , then they get big Big BIG !

Imagine yer aquaponics system with 1m long barra in it !! you'd need another system just to supply the food !

Yep had one that decided all of a sudden it didn't like its position anymore..................spent the next few weeks moving all over the tank before carking it.

Not sure what specific elegance i had but was huge by the time i (my brother) sold the tank and its contents, i really miss feeding it. it looked wonderful under the 12K light.

funny, it was his tank but lived at my place...................

hi nic
I think that there is a vast market for whoever has the abilities to take care of a marine tank like yours. And doing live rocks is a great idea.
A few points you could think of:

making incrusted seaweed as caulerpa, fix them on a rock let them grow and sell it, nobody or nearly is selling seaweed for marine aquarium. have a look at at townsville aquarium, they have a seaweed filter epurating a huge fish tank (actually can't call it a fish tank by the size of it)

the protein from the skimmer could be digested by a closed circuit biofilter and then washed out to the fish tank on a daily basis, protein would give you high nitrate levels

try to do worms in the gravel beds, there is an aussie bloke that does some on an outlet flow from a fish farm (see fish farming magazine in the last 3 months), it seems that it clears the water pretty well, and he has negociated a big contract with Skretting.au for the preparation of curing/finishing fish food, seems that they give a nice taste to the fish

Try sea horses in the live rock tank, they should be all right as long as it is cycled and has insects living in the sand and they sell well, there are a few farms in the world and it sells well

you could check for barra in the FT because you can do all the growth in sea water as long as you take the time to get them adapted, i'll get some infos if you are interested

you could include a wave box in the growbeds to keep a high current and high DO

hope you find these infos interesting, i'll continue searching in my files and send it to you.
Amacafish

that would be one expensive system, live rock is anywhere from $3.99USD/lb- $8.00/lb plus the live rock will eat up all of the nitrates.
I would think the salt in the water would kill most plants.

I just rebuilt my reef tank but I'll be using freshwater for AP. good luck with a salt system, if it works i'd love to see it.

heres a couple pics of my reef tank rebuild

this is the marine tank I used to help look after
http://www.reefhq.com.au/home/exhibits/ ... ef_exhibit

oh and we had sharks too
http://www.reefhq.com.au/home/exhibits/predator_exhibit

Caulerpa is very very hard to grow so is kelp, I got given a mat of zoathids maybe 10x10cm in size absolutely covered in caulerpa and in just days it died off. My tank is at least 6 months old and from the pictures you can see its thriving. Though not even that can sustain caulerpa.

Sea horses are very hard to get in W.A hippocampus hippocampus are the normal species but we cannot import from over eat, something to do with diseases.

Some easy to breed species would be: occelaris clownfish, most clownfish Pterapogon Kauderni (Bangai cardinals), dotty backs and a few blennies. I can get marine aquarium fish cheap and may even know where to source a few breeding pairs.

Bandai cardinals breed (mouth brooders) with nearby urchins and the babys take refuge within their spines. Clownfish breed near carpet anemones on the rocks close to the anemone.

There is so much to consider with the AP system whether to go with ornamental fish or produce.

Thanks for all the input and advice. Keep the ideas and info rolling people

Nic

was motherhood worth it J?

hmmmm

the correct answer would have been an unequivocal YES!

wait til July Steve, then you will see

you know, thats exactly what i was thinking when i was typing it....................

hey KP, buddy, mate....................

they are angels truly

but back to marine tanks....