Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just getting started,still in the educating my self phase
find aquapohnics fasinating, cant stop reading about it
I am presently a comm fisherman(shrimp,crabs,fish).
I also have a lot of experence in closed loop biological systems
as we use them to shed soft shell crabs for market and
also use them for live bait for the sportfishing market.
Can't wait to try to incorpirate some plants into the systems
This seeme like a great form,very informtive,thanks for haveing me
Mike

What do you raise for live bait , saltwater or fresh ?

Richard in Sugar Land,
100 miles to the west, and in a major drought.

Hey Mike

How are you guys going down there, is your industry managing to get back on track at all? I love soft shell crab, always order it when I see it on a menu.. Im interested, do you catch them in the wild or rear them?

Richard,we do not raise the bait,It is all wild caught.We just keep it alive in our systems
until we sell it ,usualy no longer than a week.The water is brackish about 12 to 17 ppt
salinity.We sell mostly shrimp and some cocahoe minnows.
Eastbound it's getting harder and harder to make a living fishing in coastal Louisiana.
We have had 5 hurricanes directly affect us sense 05 and then last years BP oil spill nearly
wipped us out.Were I fish in Barataria Bay took a huge hit from the oil,It will take a long time to reistablish our markets,people dont believe its safe to eat and frankly I dont know if it is my self.
We also have to compete with cheaper imported product in the market place.We used to make a good living but its getting tough.As for the softshell crabs,we catch them wild right before there going to moult.then we put them in our tanks and wait for them to shed there shells. after they shed we take them out before they have time to get hard again,Softshells mmmm good.I was wondering if you know of any AP systems using brackish water and if so do you know what type of plants can tolerate some salinty that I could try. Or do you think that any plants could be acclamated to withstand some salinty?
I know that some saltwater fish species can be acclamated to withstand freshwater for aquaculture purposes ,I wonder if it would work the other way around with some plant species, fresh to salt?
Thanks
Mike

Here is one thread that talks a bit about it:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9388&p=269632&hilit=brackish#p269632

And if you can find a number or address for BatonRouge Bill, he was doing one and is not far from you.