Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You'll get there - look at EB - he's loaded now !!

New record for water temps: a steady 3.5 degrees at 9am this morning.

60 trout feeding and loving it.

Damn - I was going through my thread and at 05 Aug last year my fish were way bigger than they are now =( Doesn't look like I'll get a good crop this year. Damn ANZAC day.

When I had fish swimming between tanks, about 7 trout ended up in the wrong tank, I got them out yesterday with a fish trap, a couple were as big as the the ones in other tank as they were eating marron pellets, I only saw 2 or 3 do this and was surprised when I caught 7, 4 of these are only just bigger than when I got them, but the yabbie disaster has put me a month behind as well, because of the super cold though they seem to be eating a lot more, last year I stuck with the 1% feed ratio, these are on about 2%

Damn, did you see my yacht and mazzerati parked out the back...

Our first system was the same, Monya helped install it while he was over here in W.A.. The price I charged the woman was pretty much the cost price of all the materials, and the truck hire. It didn't cover any labour or the fuel for the truck, didn't even cover lunch or any incidentals...

Well that's good to know. Hopefully spring will see more interest. My current issue is that I was showing 2-3 groups of people through my backyard system each weekend. It took hours of my weekend and they treated it like SHIT. Seriously, stood on plants in my garden, uprooted seedlings in the growbeds, put their sunscreened hands in the water. Gah!

So I'm looking for another spot to put my demo system.

Hows the system going Gemmell? Im gearing up to do mine slowly, properly and taking in any learnings I can from fellow canberran AP folk like yourself. Any tips before I launch into it?

Brendan

Hi guys, just a quick update: I've been overseas for a month. My dad and my friend came over on alternate days and fed the fish. No problemo's - fish have grown considerably (still smaller than last year though ) and the plants have grown (and gone to seed ).

Still. Just goes to show, if AP is setup right, it only takes very minimal maintenance to keep it going.

Oh - and that's the Trout system. There was NO maintenance done in the old system (containing silver perch). Came back, and was amazed to find them all fit and healthy.



Post up your plans on the forum here and let us all pick it apart. Or use a tried and tested method and products (e.g. BYAP stuff or IBC's & bathtubs). Spring's a really good time to get a system cycling.

Hey Simon,
Youre off to Flroiade in a couple of days I think!
We are off to the Perth Royal Show again starting Saturday, it's all go.
Good luck with your presentation!
Faye

"Post up your plans on the forum here and let us all pick it apart. Or use a tried and tested method and products (e.g. BYAP stuff or IBC's & bathtubs). Spring's a really good time to get a system cycling."

System will be built around an IBC and 2.4 x 1.2m growbeds. My growbeds are nice and high and would drain straight back into the ibc so im not sure if ill put in a sump or not, but wouldnt mind having some yabbies somewhere in the system.

How are your silver perch going? Have you got any of them to plate size yet? I have seen a few people running silvers and they havent really been that impressive. I'd like to do something different like golden perch and/or bass.

Golden Perch are a complete failure in aquaponics and even RAS tank systems...

Bass are extremely slow growing, probably taking 3-4 years to get to the kilo mark...

Why are GPs a failure in aquaponics?

20% will refuse to take a pellet feed from day one, another 40-50% will refuse the pellet feed within a few months.... and about another 20% will get eaten by any remaining GP's...

If you end up with 10-20% of the fish you stock... you're doing extremely well...

And that's probably about the same in a farm dam anyway....

Interesting. Why are bass so slow growing? 4 years seems a bit extreme. That would mean they grow faster in the wild which would be odd.

Also what about catfish?

To add to that - GP are BORING. They are ambush fish, so they will sit in a hidy hole and wait for something to go right past. They don't come out.

Silver perch and trout are aggressive, they come out and hit the food. Great to watch. Also - we have a great climate for trout, why not use them? Eel tailed catfish are supposedly pretty tasty and interesting.

Finally, check the materials of your beds (you didn't mention what they are made of) or post them up here in a thread of your own.