Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Angie,

Slightly more relaxed here in South Africa. Initially our fish will be smoked, vacuum packed and frozen by a local licensed processor (as we did today). In the mean time I will build a small processing plant and get it certified (on behalf of the client).

Cheers

I'm glad to hear that for your sake. Processing will definitely give you a greater edge over your competition and as you have said- longer marketing window. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress. I am following with great interest and once I'm established with my prototype, I hope to share and enlighten others as you have.

Good luck, I follow your plans with interest.

Hey, did Dr. Takeda ever get back to you with the data on the strawberries?

I killed my tilapia first by putting them in ice water for a few minutes to stun them and poking them with a knife in the brain, then tried poking first then ice, but finally just did it by putting them in ice water similar to S. If you wait about 15-20 minutes they are real dead by then, for sure by 1/2 hour and since they're in ice water you don't have to be in a hurry. If you try cutting them before they've been in the ice water for a long time then you get muscle twitching and stuff that is unnnerving. The last ones I did were dead as doornails just on ice water by the time I filleted them so I didn't have to poke them with the knife at all.

I tried leaving one out in the air but it was still flopping around 1/2 hour later, tilapia don't die very fast that way. The ice is pretty humane and simple.

Ice seems the easiest way I have ever heard. I know if I was really hungry I would lose all squeamishness.... but for now... real glad to have learned of this way to kill the fish

No

Lots of good research about strawberries, albeit from a hydroponics perspective.. has been done by Dr. Lynette Morgan of Massey University NZ...

After the Christmas break everything is now slowly getting back to normal. At the commercial site steady maintenance is bearing fruit (forgive the pun). So far in this system we have the following planted;

Tomatoes

Strawberries (in towers)

Watercress (in the drain)

Mint

Lettuce

Cape Gooseberry

Green Peppers

Chillis

I am now doing research on rice. Yes, rice !! I'm thinking of planting it in the very wet drain that collects the water from the strawberry towers and growbeds and runs into the sump.

We planted about 50 strawberry plants and after 4 weeks (save for some initial wilting) they are thriving. They produced a good many fruit and are now sending out runners in all directions.

The fish are also doing well. I introduced another 350 male fingerlings to pond #3. Today I borrowed a throw net and after a few practice throws in pond #1 (brood pond) managed to catch quite a few fingerlings in the 30-40mm size range which are looking nice and healthy and I moved them to pond #2 (mixed-sex juveniles).

We shaded the ponds with 80% black shade cloth this week and it certainly has helped. The temperature is now a perfect 28 deg and the algae in the ponds is definitely reduced.

More strawberries and the fish tunnel.

Not sure if this should be here or on the rice thread
I would guess that rice will need a period of semi-drought to mature and harden the seed. Is this possible with your setup?

You could also try a short-harvest crop like peashoots, buckwheat sprouts, coriander - something that grows quickly and harvested early to reduce waterlogging issues.

Kangkong would also go mental there, but it will clog everything with roots, so you'd want something like slotted pipe wrapped in geotextile for the drain.

I could be wrong though

Could they grow the rice in containers that are sunk into the gb. You can then lift them out to mature and dry.

Anyone heard from synaptoman or Cyara lately on how their systems are going?

Synaptoman hasn't logged on since Thu Dec 23, 2010 ... and his last blogs on his website were around March this year....

He's now working a full time "programming job".... and some of his comments have relevance to recent posts concerning commercialisation....



And bare in mind... Synaptoman was set up in a country where labour cost were cheap... and regulatory compliance virtually non-existant...

Forgot to add... had his home (with AP system) in Knysna, South Africa.... up for sale in Dec 2010...

http://synaptoman.wordpress.com/2010/11 ... homestead/

The March 2011 blog in the other post suggests that he might not have sold after all....