Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That looks beautiful, our dinner was very tasty last night too We had Spanish rabbit stew done in the pizza oven, with pizzas of course. It was yummy, thankyou Deb and Mac. Now I just need a pair of rabbits and we might be able to grow our own.
How did you cook the Barra?

Yummy, that sounds nice! Glad you liked it-Are you seriously thinking of rabbits??? I was just about to advertise a pair......
Barra dinner....stuffed with spring onion, lemon grass, garlic and kaffir lime leaves....sliced limes on the outside and wrapped in foil, splashed with white wine, then baked in the oven...yum! Served with home grown salad...who could ask for more??

Are YOU serious- SOLD THEN!
Happy mothers day to me!

Done...just sent you a pm....let us know when you want to come..
Endless rabbit dinners coming up.....You will need two separate pens or cages for them (Eddy- )

We keep yabbies in an IBC, and they have been going well, even having babies. There are about three different sizes in there and there are lots of small/medium sized pipes for them all to hide in.

Well, just noticed a large yabbie with either a shed shell or a dead one beside it...not sure which???

Do you think the big one has eaten the other?? Would it be better to put the small ones in a separate tank??

Shed: 99% percent certainty. If it had simply died, the carapace would not be lifted. If it had been killed, it would not be whole.

I wonder what soft-shell yabbie would taste? Probably much like soft-shell crab. Not easy to come up with many, though....

Hi dandm!

I have had yabbies for years and Im bankin this guy has shed, if he has been munched by one of his buddies they usually only eat bits and pieces, if the shell you are showing is completely empty than he has shed.

On the issue of seperating them, you will never stop them eating each other, even splitting them up into size groups wont help, I had a tank full of babies and over time they dropped down to about 6 or 7 in the end. They are terratorial and aggressive towards each other and apparently "never forget a face".

The only cure I have found is with the bigger ones you can use an elastic band around their main claws and then they cant attack each other (they use the smaller claws underneath to eat with) or pull the claws off completely, although they are the tastiest part when harvesting.

Good luck!!!

The yabbies are going well (we think!)...there are about 6 in there ....which is better than one big one

We have harvest a few trout-last weekend caught five in the net and the biggest was 430 grams, yesterday caught three and they were 500 grams! (BTW does everyone weigh them before or after gutting?? These were before gutting)
Not bad from 15 grams in May.... it means we need to keep up with the harvesting though or 50 of them won't fit in the freezer by October!!

I weigh before gutting because it makes them sound bigger and better.
That is a good size and a nice looking fish. How often do you feed them and how much?

Wow...this has been an impressive thread.
Great effort! I so very wish I had a pool

Nice plate size trout..... makes my mouth water...

Trout are so easy to catch! Just throw in a handful of food and scoop with the net...caught four more this afternoon, two over 600 grams-one 630 and the other 650 (I am with you Faye, it feels much more impressive to weight them before gutting!!).

Faye, I forgot to answer your question earlier on feeding. I started off weighing the food so they had 3% of their biomass-this was when they were fingerlings. As they grew bigger I reduced that down to 2%, so when they were around 200 grams, with 50 fish we were feeding them 100 grams morning and night (and perhaps a bit extra during the weekend. Lately we have been doing about 150 grams morning and night (though sometimes more when they are really voracious!! ), which is around 1 1/2% of their biomass.

I am not sure how big they will eventually get, but I am mindful of not overdoing it and have the whole balance of the water collapse, hence harvesting some each week now....38 to go.....

Well, the weather here is warming up and the trout were slowing down, so we decided this weekend was it....we didn't want to risk losing them by waiting too long.
So the net went in, and the last (we hope/think!!) remaining 14 trout were caught.
They all looked a really good size, and on weighing found the smallest was 800g and the biggest just tipped over 1kg. To say we were pleased would be an understatement! they went in as 15gram fingerlings on 6th May.

All 14 were healthy and a good size, as the phone and bottle of wine illustrate

Also, weighing the biggest after gutting etc it was still 779grams.

well done, nice pink flesh too.

Did you know you can get banrock station in 2L casks too? Same great taste but much cheaper