Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

G'day -
I'm just getting a new system together - my first.

I'm in the Southern Highlands of NSW - so pretty cold in winter, pretty hot in summer. Maybe close to Melbourne or Adelaide Hills weather. Minima down to -4 or so in winter, maxima can get to 40 in summer. The system will be in an enclosed hothouse - fabric covered, so temperatures will be somewhat, but not completely controlled.

The fishtank is about 2350l; four grow beds totalling about 1520l, in a CHIFT PIST configuration.

My questions are:

• what good-eating fish breed would be recommended for this sort of climate?
• how many should I stock (bearing in mind I'm a beginner)
• should I first stock with feeders (how many?) when commissioning the system?
• where can I buy fish reasonably locally - or do suppliers ship to regional areas?
• should I stick to one breed of fish, or mix it up?
• what haven't I asked that I should have?

How to use the search function!

Cheers IanK

Thanks, IanK.

It all depends on your system, unless you buy a ready made system they will all be different.

Read, Read, Read is the best option then have a crack at it.

And yes the search function is a good option Good Luck

I don't understand how the ready-madeness of a system would make any difference...

What would affect the breed & number of fish other than climate, water volume & growbed volume?

Exactly

Umm, thanks, I think.

It's what I meant Mick, if your building your own it will have different characteristics (spelling) to others, If you have nft pipes or dwc it will determine the end results, heat may or may not be a problem, fish species for you could be different to me etc etc, I think the best thing is maybe to find someone close to you and read their thread

hey mick

im currently going down the same path, system has been running for around 4 months, have had some feeders in there but i dont think they do much, i used Hummonia and kept an eye on levels until i noticed that the ammo disapeared rapidly.

been using hummonia in small amounts whilestill running feeder comets.

i am currently doing the rounds for some Silver Perch, i found that if you look up Aqua Culture Hatcheries you can find a fair few around the place, also livefish.com.au has been used by some peeps.

i think if you got some Silvers they would respond well, going on what iv been reading on here.

you could always start off with a few 25-40 Fingerlings, and kept an eye on levels and adusted feeding accordingly, i think its upto just getting them in there and trying it out, there pretty cheap cheaper than feeders i found and pretty hardy.

sometimes i find it hard to get help on this subject...

Steve is just around the corner from you Michael... I'll see if he's going to take some Silver's to replace his trout shortly...

Email me... I can bring fish up to you when I bring some up to Steve... or whenever you're ready...

And for starting up a new system,
It might be better to use the recommended stocking numbers of 20-25 fish per 500 liters of grow bed instead of the above quoted MAX amount. It seems that even the experts often need to scramble to keep their fish alive when even the smallest thing goes wrong when stocked to the MAX long before the fish actually reach the MAX size.

In this case, with 1500L of grow beds... that's a potential of 60-75 fish.... based on that formula... and an assumption that fish will be eaten from 500gm upward...

IMO... for a startup... 40-45 fish would be more appropriate...

I agree with Rupe.

Thanks, m3tal.

I'm told if you're having trouble finding help, you should use the search function

My trouble is that the Southern Highlands has a quite different climate to the rest of NSW, and most of the information here seems to be WA- or QLD-based; quite different to NSW and quite different to the Southern Highlands.

Yes, I'm (currently) leaning towards some Silver Perch - at a low stocking density to begin with.