Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Love a good debate Gary...............

What do you think of the idea of modifying ice cream containers as cages (would they be big enough?), perhaps using some shadecloth and cable ties, cloth on top and bottom, each ice cream container fitted to some type of rack (wire mesh) that would allow the whole lot to be submersed into a wheelie bin in one go, sort of farming yabbies in a "stacked" sytem in a wheelie bin? Now here is the main problem as I see it .... how would you be able to distribute food to all the little icecream cages in one go?

I guess another way is to use large icecream containers , plumb them up one after the other in a long line ... water in at one end, water out at the other end, airation and filtration in a sump.


Hmmm.. just messing with ideas ... I have just got 10 yabbies to play with, currently all in one plastic crate with filtration and airation and some old coffee mugs to hide in. (They enjoyed their compost worms this evening!)

hhhmmmmm, I guess an icream container would be better than the tiny bottle type things that have already been discussed, I guess it's still sort of solitary confinement though.... How big are your yabbies Johnnie? Mine are quite big and looking at how they would fit in an icecream container I don't think they could even stretch their claws out, well maybe if they sat on an angle...

Where did you get yours from?

The more I look into Redclaw, the more I want to farm and eat them...
I have now got a lovely all natural compost heap going (all leaves, so I guess its more like a leaf mould pile)...anyways, there is a very large earthworm population in it - that combined with my 3 worm farms (only 2 are running right now) should help supliment the redclaw diet...
I just don't want to stock them too densly in ontop of one another... they taste good but they gotta l;ive good to taste good...
Are yabby like fish, growing in size in relation to the size of the tank/dam they live in?

I'm pretty sure redclaw will prosper on a diet made up mostly of veges. You may be able to feed the craps directly to them, rather than the worms. I seem to recall catching redclaw in opera house traps using potato for bait At least I remember trying, maybe we didn't catch any I know we definitelly caught heaps using dim sims

AM and ALL,

I've never trully understood this "growing to the size of the tank" statements, and to be honest consider it .........simplistic

Look at how densly populated aquaculture tanks are...... the fish grow quite big there don't they. I believe it to be a function of water quality, which i guess is related to tank size, but can also be low quality in a big tank or high quality in a small tank. I proved thisa with some convict cichlids i didn't have anywhere to put when they bred. i left them in a small tank with minimal air, and really bad water quality, they survived, but six months on were the same size. they eventually made it into another tank the same size with excellent water quality and i could see them growing everyday.

Please anyone who knows either agree or disagree with me. I want to put this one to bed in my own mind

That is what I used and caught plenty! but then again, they are like water cocaroaches, eating just about anything!


My experience with oscars seemed to support that the size of the tank affects the size they grow to... but I only had it with them.... I never kept larger fish for long enough to know/support/dispute this idea, which is why I posed the question

They are pretty small, light in colour and seem to have a little red flash on the claws. (I guess they must be redclaw rather than destructor). I got them at totally tanked at Kenwick - $ 1.50 ea. - I guess I could have got bigger ones from Freo market at lower cost.

I guess I need to be thinking a bigger than ice cream containers regards tanks for a stacking system, complete rethink perhaps. (I don't want to put them in solitary).

They live OK as a community of 10 or so?

I can feed these veggies / general food scraps as well as worms then?

I've only had experience with destructor (what a cool name), had like 20 once in a 200lt aquarium (not that volume matters are they only occumpy the ground level. They are fine if you give them enough rocks wood pvc to hide under and call a home. they get funny if they cant hide and start fighting. Yep they are the garbage disposal unit of the aquatic world. Its funny to watch them clawing at flake food that is sinking

so, if they prefer the bottom levels then perhaps a number of shallowish ponds/containers would work well then as all the extra water would be wasted if you only had the redclaw/destructor... This is good as I only have the shallow bathtub system - think I might be able to stock about 5 to 8 per bathtub - what do you all think?

i reckon you could go 15 (on the size of a large destructor) just make it homely for them with the pvc or rocks or wood, arranged so they have hidy holes for each of them.

ANything other than a shallow container would be a waste, unless you built up rock or bricks so there was a caverous landscape. You should see how active they are at 24C, all the little kids that come to my place get scared. (some adults too!) a mates brother inlaw came to pick up a pc that i had fixed for him, he walked into my computer room where i had the 22 orginal silver perch (big) and some marine crabs, and said "man, this is like out of a horror movie, you're not going to murder me now are you?" LOL

LOL
15 you say... hmmm, I can picture them now steaming on my plate with garlic sauce!!!

we went to the grampians in victoria a while ago, they had a dam filled with destructor, we'd throw the net in with some dogfood in a sock and return a few hours later. we did this about 4 times during the day, i think i counted about 80 yabbies before the had lemon and oil put on them and went onto the barbie. Mmmmmm gluttony

damn, getting the munchies here... They are good eating and the reason I am considering them over the usual fish in our aquaponics system is that their diet is a lot easier to cater to - if one of them dies, heck, it bacomes tomorrow's dinner

yes, but you always get upset with meat recovery from them!

I've gotten used to saving all the prawn and fish left overs from sea food nights at my place, haven't had one for a while), i might reconsider making some more fish food again as the jades really love the home made fish food that i was going to bin! I might have to modify the sausage maker i was using though.......it was very hard work last time.