Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

From this visitor the reaction was... "Nice!"

But then I'm somewhat biased. The Carp were in WD's true CHIFT PIST systems and, although they were hard to spot, they were certainly active and healthy. Need a little more growing on before they are ready for eating.

The Trout were in the indoor Aquadrome. I'm sure most visitors would be more impressed with this. When WD fished a couple out for us to have a look at they were certainly big enough to be gutted, wrapped in a few layers of newspaper and thrown on the BBQ.

I not certain how people would take to eating carp over trout. Personally I find that they're both good. Coming from a Koi background, I understand the needs of carp better than trout.

Maybe we'll go for the Carp, sourcing the trout is getting ridiculous.

What do you feed them? And have you eaten any?
Thanks guys,

Andrew

I don't think WD's carp are big enough yet. Carp have a slower growing rate than trout.

hi DragonC, just out of curiosity can you eat Koi carp? and have you eaten them?

Yes and Yes. But only "Crow Koi"... the dark ones. Never eaten coloured ones, but I suspect they taste the same. Definitely an "earthy" tasty. But not unpleasant.

cool thanks, i have a friend that has some wopping big black Koi that he calls his crows, i have been waiting for him to bread them so icould get some off him and really I just wanted some because i think they look cool, now i have 2 reasons to get some

thanks.

Update from a now sunny afternoon here on Anglesey.
A damp miserable morning but made enjoyable by a visit from Andrew1 and his young family,who he is training in APology!

Also a photo of our largest trout to date at 3lb.14oz - or 1.77326Kgms - we have put it in the freezer either for when times are hard or for Christmas eating.

Now that's a trout....

How old??

We think it is 15months - not quite sure.From fingerling size.
There are a few more in that tank that are coming up to that size- We look for a slow steady grow in our fish as we can accomodate them all year around in our climate.
We are getting more and more people calling for these large fresh trout - so we have to keep an eye on the numbers as we are likely to run out of the big ones in the next few months.
The brocolli and other greens have been fantastic this year -so the growbeds are really working well. The worms also seem to have multiplied and are a useful source of protein for the fish!!

Ah, my cover is blown

Thanks for great visit - you do have a truly amazing setup. Not just the Aquadrome, but all of the amazing alternative systems around the place - really great to get the lowdown on everything from people with such great experience! Well done guys - we'll be back!

The dangers of using open-ringed air stones!
This trout had got stuck in the air stone without us noticing and you can see the damage on its body.
We have now removed all of these airstones which are fine for hydroponics but NOT for aquaponics.
The trout tasted beautiful . Obviously we could not sell one that was marked like that!
Another lesson learned!

Don't feel bad about it WD... it had to be done...

Thanks for passing on the learning WD.

Twas the week before Christmas and the snow fell for the second big fall!
We have 12-15 inches of frozen snow and it looks like more on the way.
As we are planning a reorganisation of our systems we started by culling some of our larger trout.And had a pleasant surprise - with one weighing in at nearly 5 and a half pounds and the other large one at 4pounds.
This year the trout have done really well - thank goodness we were not persuaded to keep tilapia.
We also cleaned out one of our carp tanks and they have trebled in size in 12 months.
Couple of pictures to cool you down!

Man thems nice looking fish how old are they