Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks Nocky, for your generous illustrations and sharing your experiences. I am brand new to this, but with my son's help expect to get started. We have a supply of clear, blue, and black barrels from a carwash operation to help get us started. And my daughter is into raising Koi with a bio-floral garden, so will get some help from her. I am retired, 64, and a little disability, but delighted to find this forum and such helpful others. Do you know if Blue Marrons are importable to US/Georgia? Do I understand that your system took-off when you added more veggies?, hence more veggie filtration?

Hi Richard and welcome, no Blue Marron can't be exported, here in Western Australia they don't even like Marron going to the Eastern States, Blue are more rare and growers are very protective of them, it is extremely difficult to get a breeding pair. Veggies are excellent for keeping things equal, mainly as the medium used helps filter out the baddies and promotes the growth of good bacteria, don't know about flowers maybe one of the guru grandfathers of AP can help with that, but I expect flowers will be fine as they will still take out the nutrients and the medium will help with filtration, keep us informed of you progress and maybe post some questions on flowers in the plant section

Richard,

Petco carries Cherax Teniumanus (a blue marron, but listed there as freshwater lobster): about 3" long and about $6 each. The ones I've seen are light blue, not that cobalt of Nocky's. I've never tried them....

Nocky you avatar is so lol

Still nothing happening in Narrogin growing wise, plenty of frosts though, have added a air pump purchased from the loverly Faye at BYAP Shop, the not so loverly Joel was in the background so Hi again guys, also getting a couple of more Blue Marron females and am going to consume the brown marron the missus little system is going ok but the frosts are stopping growth will post pics soon

What pump did you get nocky?

is a duel outlet, about 8 lpm (I think) with battery backup, it came with 2 air stones, air hose (heaps), 2 check valves, variable speed and blows a storm, not sure on the brand, didn't read the box

Still not a lot happening down here, is warming up so trying some seeds in Greenhouse, have added another 4 baby blue marron and Pygmy Perch have breed up a bit, saw a price of Pygmy Perch and I have a few dollars have put mesh on tank to keep Marron in hope to put up some pics on weekend

I have so enjoyed working my way thru your posts and checking out your pics. I read about Aquaponics in the newspaper about 3mths ago, got Joel's DVD out of the library, and finally took the hubby down to check it all out last week. Comment from him " I could get very interested in this - can I grow marron instead of fish?" - Don't have the time to source putting our own system together so seriously looking at the family set up from BYAP - the shop is a massive inspiration, well done Joel and your team.. Will be looking at growing marron possibly in a seperate tank, using fish in main. We're in Lesmurdie up in the hills so get a bit cooler in Winter and bit warmer in summer. It was mentioned that Yabbies may be a better bet, but they don't grow as big as marron I thought? Any hints and tips I also thought that marron/yabbies had to be kept in a seperate tank to fish? What do pygmy perch taste like and how quickly do they grow.. enough questions for moment I guess

welcome to the forum jaydream, here is a thread to read from Simmo who has grown marron
viewtopic.php?p=10495#p10495

sorry late getting back Jay but flat out at the moment, yabbies are easier to grow but are aggressive and kill each other, marron are harder to grow but are bigger and taste better, Pygmy Perch only grow to 65mm and are there to only host mussels and are a nice fish to look at, but not edible, marron and fish or yabbies and fish are better in separate tanks as the marron will eat the smaller fish and the fish will eat baby marron, I have 1 tank with a mesh partition if look at my construction pic's, and this seems to work well.

I have made some huge changes to my grow area and seems to be going well as all things have germinated, will post pic's when established, the blue marron have breed up and I have Pygmy Perch coming out of my ****

Hey Ell - meant to post a msg to say thanks for the other link - but lost the original msg, only found it when the new post on this popped up. I've been reading so much of the different threads my eyes and brain in overload.

Cheers

Got some spare pygmy perch for later in the year nocky? Wouldnt mind some once I have the spare tank space.

Don't know how many I have OB but should be ok, mate has some in a dam and I think we are going to get some more, keep in touch

Cool, drove past narrogin yesterday