Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Imy... takes a while... but they do their thing....

You can see the mums... holding the eggs under curled tail...



You'll see them fan their back legs to flow water and oxygen past the eggs....

The one in forground has basically released all her eggs...

And if you look closely at the pipe... you'll see the result...

What fantastic looking creatures Rupe! I love that colour!

Lovely looking yabies, what size do you harvest them at?
also what sort of dress out weight do you get (food:wet live weight) look like they would be alot better than the equivalent we get round here (invasive signal crayfish, and squat lobsters when diving),
they look very tasty indeed.... good job

Oh cool! Babies!
Mine aren't so blue but are getting there.
The mums seem happy and when I was feeding the fish last night I saw a pair 'coupling'... I also saw a worse for wear male with only one claw nearby. Things can get nasty when they display to the females

I'll take the camera out next time we do a search for eggs on the females and see if I can snap a lovely lady in berry for all of our international friends on here

What size tank do you isolate your mum yabbies in? How many would you safely put together in there?

Had a dozen split between 2 x 200ltr tubs Imy.... the back tub is interconnected and was deliberately intended to be a "low tidal flow" tub... with duckweed to suck up the ammonia...

Didn't get around to getting the ammonia... and the ammonia and nitrite levels went through the roof on a really hot day... while I was getting the Silver Perch...

I'd taken out the airstone to put it in the isolation tank ... ready for the perch...

End result... 4 dead yabbies... rescued the rest, but had to clean one of the tubs...

So at the moment, there's eight in one 200ltr tub... most of them females in berry... so I didn't want to go messing around anymore....

Might not seem like many in a tub that size... but they're dirty little feeders, poopers and breathers.... levels too high for my liking... but hard to change water without disturbing them....

Have whacked an airstone back in, not so much for oxygenation... they'll survive in very low levels... more to stir the water around ... and offgass a bit of ammonia etc...

The... ahem... dirt garden. No pics of the tomatoes in the aquaponic garden because its tragic. Still not cycled fully

UPDATE PICS of the aquaponics... we have growth! 7 weeks yesterday since we put the yabbies in.

Stretchy tommies!

amazing what happens when they dont have wind to knock them down

LOL... they look weird, don't they? Still... I have managed to avoid using seasol

Took one for the team to see what happens.

Hey? Why avoid something that makes a big difference, and is natural?

Why not? I thought the point was that the poo would do the job

Helps with the trace elements. From what I've seen AP uses a lot of different things. From fish poo to worms in the GB's. Once a system has been set up for a while you get more organic matter in the GB. But to help cover yourself people add a little seasol to cover any short comings. I add a little to my smaller system even if I can't tell if it is helping. Good growth before and after.
The tomatoes will grow thicker if they get a little wind to stress there stems. If you grow a plant without this kind of stress they can fall over. Like flexing a muscle to get it stronger.

Ap was originally only though to be able to grow leafy greans - and this is true.

To grow all the things we do now, extra elements and nutrients are required, and these elements and nutrients are not present in fish food in big quantities.

Therefore hybrid (seasol / maxicrop + fish) Ap works very well to grow the woody stem fruits / vegies - with all the benefits of AP.

Have a read through a lot of the threads with people who dont use seasol - and they cant get potatoes and other things to grow *fruit* - those that do use seasol, get plentiful *fruit*.

But hey, try for a few months, let it all get running - then just quietly add a bit of seasol

Ap is a bottomless pit for a hobby, be sure of that, I use charlie carp, and seasol, the others choose maxicrop, but at the end of the day, if your not willing to add to the system for certain requirements, it just won't work....simple

It will work for lettuce.....but thats boring