Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We got a new tank for the baby yabbies and broody mums. Its a 1200l sheep trough... shallow but heaps of floor space which is what the yabbies need.
We still have the 800l one for the other yabbies and the goldfish. We are down to about 24 original yabbies (out of the 40 ordered at the start, some died in transit, others in the tank, fighting) but we now have about a MILLION baby yabbies. I wonder if you can find a few of them in the pic???? They are hanging out in some lucerne hay that someone gave me to feed the little ones since they have a little trouble with the chunky veggies. hey are growing though!

And a tomato update for fun!

I have had much more luck with proper sized tomatoes this year as well

Yay! So what is it about this year that makes the tomatoes proper sized?

I figured out that with the money I've spent on this little system, I'm going to have to grow 100kgs of tomatoes or 500 yabbies to pay it off... LOL

Anything I spend on my fish I just think of as some vacation spend at home..... and the costs melt away. Happiest part of my day is working with them.

You can think of yours as a paid-up daily holiday for the rest of your life! LOL

That's cos nothing ever goes wrong of course....

LOL... I like to think its all the junk food and movies I'd be spending money on if I lived in a town where they had fast food and a cinema... they don't here... but its still a LOT of burgers if you add it up! LOL

We ate our first tomato yesterday! a 96g black krim. They really colour up and ripen quickly in the hot house! It has some sunburn to one side where it was up against the Nth side window of the hot house but it still tasted good. We had it sliced up on crackers with vintage cheese and homemade kabana. YUM!

The baby yabbies are happy and healthy in the new big tank and we have 3 more mums in berry in there too. The adults in the other tank are eating a LOT. I guess the water is warm enough for some more mating and shedding activity.
I fed them a mug full of thawed frozen veg yesterday and there is very little of it left.

They LOVE corn and peas. Its so fun watching a yabby with 3 peas, 1 in its mouth and 1 in each feeding claw. As soon as they take a bite, the one in their mouth falls out and one of the feeding claws stuffs a new pea in its gob before retrieving the lost pea. Its like juggling. Little clowns.

I'd love to know how everyone elses' marron/yabbies are going. Any more babies around?

Mine has lost most of its berries

Bummer. Did she drop them or have they just turned into babies? I thought mine had dropped them too... until I saw the teeny little bubs zipping around the tank.
Has anything changed with your water? Temp? Have you re-planted?

I might have to go and check the ladies in berry today and see if their move to the new brood tank has done anything to them.

I've been feeding a LOT more because the adults are very active, they are shedding and crawling all around instead of hiding like usual. I'm hoping the extra food will calm the fighting a little.

Have yours already bred this season? Mine are onto their second round. Perhaps they will hold on a second season?

What water temp are you holding them at Imy... my first lot of babies are doing OK... but the parents haven't produced another batch... or not yet anyway....

I've no idea of the temps, I've not been checking.

Its going to be a hot one today because of the hot house and water running through it, the water gets warmer of an afternoon and thats when I see the most activity in the yabbies.

Having said that, the addition of a 1200l baby tank last week will change temps a little too. It won't get so hot.

The things I've found make a difference in their activity/health in the short time I've had them is:

Light. We have shade cloth over our tanks but when I lift the cloth for any period of time, they hade out. They don't seem to like the bright light... BUT breeding began when the daylight hours became extended... it also got warmer at that stage.

Temps. As soon as it got warm, the yabbies started shedding, fighting and mating. They ate a lot more and were more active in general, just wandering around the tank. Then it cooled off for a while and they became quieter. As soon as the temps during the day got above 25 (not in the water, the outside air temp) they started to do it all again.

Air. They slowed down a lot when I was switching the pump off in the night. The water started to smell more fishy so I now run the pump contniously. There is an outlet back into the tank on the GB inlet pipe because the pump was too strong and it let out some flow and the outlet from the GBs in above the surface of the water and these two allow more oxygen in the water.

Food. They were getting fed a mug full of chopped frozen (thawed) veggies every 2-3 days. I do have to manage this by eye but I like to have a few pieces scattered on the floor at all times. Not too much, but when I look to see that there are only 6-7 bits left (for 25 yabbies) its time to feed again. They LOVE a variety. Carrot, broc, cauli, peanuts and especially peas and corn. The sweeter the better I guess. They have been eating loads more while shedding/active.

Hidey holes. I like to have a ratio of 2 pipes per yabby. Reduces fighting and claws lost.

Goldfish. This has been tricky because it means we have to have the brood tank with no goldies for the babies, thats why we added the 2nd tank... but in the adult tank, the goldfish seem to give the yabbies something else to do (they nip at each other) and the goldies clean up after the yabbies and vice versa.

Umm... I think that is all.

How big are your babies now? When did they hatch?

Just a little update (BIG tomato!)

Some of the baby yabbies are about 3cm long. Nearly ready to go in the tank with the goldfish... maybe I'll give them some more time before I do that though!

One thing I wonder if anyone can help me with is... why are the tomatoes getting a harder core this year? Its not just the aquaponics either... friends down the road with a dirt garden have the same problem. I wonder what it is.

the problem will most likely be climatic.....all my capsicans are runts.......the plants are trying to adapt to the climate change in a month instead of decades.....

we are all seeing a serious problem

Thats what I suspected. I thought maybe humidity and heat because of a morning they seem to have collected some moisture in the well where the stalk joins the fruit.

Bummer about your capsicans

yes some of my tomes are hard as this year