Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Heaters, good question. I suppose I wanted to provide optimum conditions and I thought 20 -24 was ideal for yabbies to also increase their growth rate. I better do a little more research then. Because it is indoors it has been at 20 degrees anyway but I have been keeping at 24. I also just read that 20 is the target, any higher is not benefit, can someone confirm this.

As for filter, I have a filter with one layer of gravel another of those cermanic tubes hooked up so that is not a problem. I guess due to the small setup, even the smallest of flux will have big effects and to save of heaps of water changes early on it is best to have the filter one.

If having the pump mainly there to collect bits and pieces, have a gravel bed to contain the bacteria as well as the filter, the continuous flow of water through a NFT setup, maybe to grow green leaf plants like basil, lettuce indoors right near a window with no direct sunlight. That way the the nitrogen cycle is there (well in 4 fours at least), just in time for the massive baby waste. Would that work?

Ideally we all prefer this to be all setup, cycled, but some of us just get to excited. I will setup a mini aquaponics setup for this one too but till then water changes to keep it safe. As for the waste water, can I not keep this bottle to help cycle another system. It then won't be wasted after all.

BD I would go with no heat, they are not that keen on it

BD here is a few pages all about Yabbies http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/aq/aq001 ... 1.php?0309

Page 2 is more about habitat, yabbies will live from 0-36c I've just read elsewhere, ideal spawning temp is 15c so I would let your water be natural again with no heat, the link above suggests females can have 1000 babies so you may need a few more names

Yep, I'd heard that as well Nocky.... but I've found they cark it whenever the water gets above 30c....

yes rupe mine to

Update:

Another female died but on that very day I noticed one baby yabby from only female left. It is so small (4mm). I panic for a moment knowing that the day beforehand I did a water changed by running that suck through the tank and I may of sucked through other babies but the next day I found another 7 so I think I may have just got in the last clean.

28th Feb : Up to 20 plus baby yabbies. I was going to move the first lot of 20 to another tank but noticed that most of them are back clinging onto mum. I think since they are wandering, they are now ready to be separated. They are not feeding off their original yolk.

As for my barrelponics, I added a sump tank and did my first test run. I may have put the 50mm drain off pipe too high in the fish tank. I was aiming for getting as much water in as possible and having a high water level but when the water comes from the growbeds the water, only just, starts to overflow the fish tank (damn it). But I had a quick fix idea by tilting the fish tank by 2-5% towards the drain outlet and that fixed it...problem 1 solved.

Problem 2, pump is too quick...I am using a 4000L/hr pump and it is filling a 190L dump tank in 7 mins which is filling approx roughly 1,630 at 2m. I am not fuss that it does it in 7 mins, just that when the siphon starts, it is not dumping out the water fast enough than what is coming in. I need ideas here. Do I slow down the filling of the dump tank (so how, how?). Do I need to have bigger pipes for the dump tank, currently using 20mm. At the moment, 15 mins later and it is still dumping. I have not even put in the media yet so the growbed is probably overflowing ( I have the safe guard pipes for that in place).

Another problem I will probably face is maybe 190L dump is to much for only 2 growbeds of maybe 90L/100L each. if media takes up 60% therefore only 40L is required in each total 80L yet I have 190L dumping through. I know this may have been extreme but if I went the 1:2 deal, I was ready for it. I knew I could have adjusted the siphon pipe to reduce the dump volume.

Fourth weekend has passed and I am nearly there...

Bleed some of your pump flow off back to your fish tank... by cutting in a "tee" return... add a ball valve so that you can adjust the flow back into the fish tank....

Will slow the flow... allowing what you need through to the dump tank/growbeds...

You can always turn the ball valve off if you add extra growbeds...

P.S.... you'll also provide extra oxygenation to the fish tank by doing this...

Of course...thanks for that tip...