Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Been a warm day here today... and on the highlands... with severe thunderstorms late this arvo...

Dropped up to the Holmes-A-Court to check the trout, and do a replant.... been out all day...

Got home about an hour ago... and, as is my habit... reached for the phone to check missed calls...

Phone was dead... spotted the power board light was also out.... damn...

Raced around to the power box..... and found all the friggin fuses pulled out....

Slapped them back in, and checked the power was on... and then raced out the back....

The Silver Perch were looking a bit stressed... but alive...

The trout weren't.... 201 fish, average weight 500gms...



Why... well recently as part of the grand business plan... Integral Energy the supplier at my previous address... was taken over by "Origin"....

The other player in the market down here... is "Endeavour Energy"...

From what I've been able to gather... Endeavour, who supplies the power to the "new" address... had issued a disconnection notice for the address... back in early September... before I moved in...

I arranged a "final reading", and disconnection at my previous address 3 weeks ago... and Integral/Origin said they would arrange a transfer of power and new account... with Endeavour...

And, as the power has been on since I moved in... I thought they'd done so....

Not SO.... apparantly Endeavour Energy decided to disconnect the power here today sometime... as the premises had no account assigned to it....

Actually their records don't actually have a service listed at all for the address... it appears "lumped in" with the business premises in front of me...

But somehow... without anyone, including the landlord, knowing... they pulled the plug....

Don't know why... there was washing on the line... a 12 outlet ACO air pump running in the back yard.... and a bloody big fish tank.... FFS...

Result.... over 100kg of trout dead...



Judging by the fact that the Silvers were/seem, still Ok... and looking at the clarity of the eyes of the trout, and gill colour.... they've probably only been dead a few hours...






Anyone know the market price of trout at the moment.... because one or other of these dropkicks will be receiving a claim for loss of stock tomorrow morning...

So who will you be sending the bill to?

HOLLY SHIT!!!!!!!

"Our office hours are 8:00 am to 16:30pm"..... both companies...

Managed to get through to someone at Endeavour via the "emergency power outage" number...

As yet, that's all I know... I don't know if "Origin" actually raised a transfer notice.. and "Endeavour" lost it... or whether it just didn't happen at all...

P.S... measured the DO once I got the power back on...

The Silver Perch tank was marginal at 2.78 DO @ 24.6 degrees... fish seem OK... (fingers crossed)

The Trout tank wasn't much worse... 2.15 DO @ 23.5 degrees... fish definitely dead...

Just goes to show the high oxygen demand of trout...

Here's a good one to quote them Rupe... $20kg

http://youtu.be/qMUZJAPM9pc... check the 30 sec mark in the video.

So that's a $2k bill they'll be receiving then eh!

To really rub salt into the wounds... I actually finished plumbing the big trout tank... and filling it up late yesterday...

I planned to move the trout from the temporary tank tomorrow....

Not that it really matters... which tank they might have been in.... without power... although the big tank is twice the volume... and shaded...

I figured $1500-$2000 was probably close to the mark....

This whole move has been one stuff up after another... with services...

Riddle me this one.... Telstra changed my phone over...and it worked for four days... but no Internet service...

So I rang... and they told me the internet would be on by the "close of business"...

And so it was... around 16:30.... But the phone line was dead....

Now how the hell do you manage to have an internet service over a phone line working... but your phone... on the god damn same line... isn't...

Took them another week... and cutoffs of one or the other service.... to get it right....

There's a credit claimed on that one as well...

There'll be some singed phone lines for this screw up I bet. Hope you can get compensation Rupe.

Sorry to read this mate

That is one sad sight... It is rather strange to hear that fuses were pulled to disconnect power, especially when they could just be pushed back in to restore power to the house/system (Didn't read if it was actually 'back on'). It just dosent sound right to me man, especially with three (was it three?) electricity provider players in town.

Either way the fact you weren't home when this occured would have me the most worried, seems direct consultation between clients and providers is beyond stale out your way.

Good reason to put a padlock on the meter box and a window so they can see your meter for readings....

Sorry for the loss

Andrew

Possible dumb question, but if you know they haven't dead for long and you know the cause (lack of oxygen) is there any reason they couldn't be gutted and put in the freezer - apart from the fact you weren't ready to harvest them?

Edit: I am not trying to talk any one out of getting some blood out of an energy company.

There probably fine to gut and freeze Arbe... but that's just another facet that has me pissed...

I had a place organized to move to, and the owner withdrew it from market a day before I was to sign the lease... (sons marital breakup).... and 4 days before I was due to vacate...

Took this place on... probably temporarily, about 12 months before it gets demolished.... as it was all that was available at short notice...

It's been vacant for about 18 months... and was a disgrace.... I've literally had to strip the place, wallpapers, carpets, and kitchen...

So I'm living out of one room full of boxes, mattress on the floor... TV on a stool, microwave, and a small fridge/freezer (full).... while I paint the place etc...

So the big freezer, and the new smoker I brought... along with most of the rest of the stuff.... is in a storage container... of course I put them up the front didn't I....

The trout tank was a temporary solution... while I moved stock from one place to another... stripped down the previous systems... and rebuilt them...

I literally finished replumbing and filling the big trout system late yesterday...







And planned to move the fish tomorrow, or Thursday.... again temporarily... until I got the freezer and smoker out of storage...

The plan was to harvest them next week, or end of month at the latest... as I'll be in Canberra second week of December for my sons passing out ceremony from Duntroon...

Last year around the same time in December... I lost about the same number of fish when I was attending his graduation from ADFA.... and was determined to cull/harvest before attending this year... hence the smoker/vacumm packer...

If I'd had the time after moving in here... and had things set up... I would have already harvested them... I was actually going to last weekend

But I've had a rush on workwise.... with everyone from Bungonia to Avoca Beach... wanting to restock large Silvers...

Because they culled their trout...... ... and a few other jobs like todays...

Never figured some bozzo would pull the fuses in the meter box...

Bottom line... I just don't have anywhere to store/freeze them... and it was near dark tonight, and I had to salt, oxygenate... and babysit the perch....