Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Had a warm day today and the greenhouse hit above 40C so I pulled the shadecloth over the roof. Fish tank in there was one 26C and the jades are loving it.


Decided it was time to put the remaining 10 jades from the aquarium into the ibc tank. It was the same weekend last year that I put tiny jade fingerlings into the greenhouse system and got most of them to edible size.
I reckon these ones will do much better

Dam, thats gettin hot mantis.

Jades look a bit like SP. Never seen them before, wish we could get them here.

Yeah Charlie they do look like silvers when young but you can see that fella is rounder than a silver already and they get more so.
Missus and I had a couple of last seasons tonight for tea. I steamed them and they were yummy. Better than fried for sure

Nice fishys! hope you have a good season!

Big tank hit 25C today and the silvers and cats in there chewed through 4 handfuls of 6mm feed in minutes. They have also harvested most of the algae of the tank walls
Love spring time

Just had a thunderstorm come over us and dump 13mm in 10mins. I wonder if that will give a nitrate spike in the systems

I wouldnt think so mantis. I recently have received major down poors on my systems and did tests before and after (basically out of interest), I admit I was watching for PH swing due to a fish loss I had months ago after a storm and wasnt fully sure what caused it.

Results :- no change what so ever.

Just my findings..

Yeah I tested the big tank and it showed 5ppt the same as last nights test
I reckon I will be able to go out tonight and watch the asparagus grow, as they love the rain. Getting 10 or more spears a day at the moment. Dirt bed BTW

How many times have you had to knock the tops of the asparagus Mantis, before you were getting good spears?
I have it growing quite well in the AP but they are still very thin spears, so I just keep letting them get to ferny stage then pulling them off and burying the ferns, as recommended in the dirt.

I dug my asparagus crowns from the river bank here where they grow wild so they were mature crowns to start with. Even so this is the third year they have been in and I am only this year getting a good feed off them. The last two years I just let them go to fern
Picking spears in the first couple of years only puts them backwards.

Hey mantis,

Just saw on your aridpatch blog that you are vacum sealing your fish harvest. I assume you freeze them after this and eat them over time (not all in one week). Do you find that it helps storing them like this compared to just wrapping them in freezer bags?

I'm thinking that the system I'm making will result in wasted harvests if I don't figure out how to store/freeze the veg long term without destroying them, or to turn them into other products. e.g. sun dried toms, tom puree, tom paste, snap frozen stir fry bags..etc.

Yeah I freeze them and they last a lot longer if vac sealed. Wife and I had a couple of the Jade perch last weekend and they were great.
As for the vegies if you have chooks and worm bins you can feed the excess to them, as well as preserving/drying etc. Jade and silver perch eat lots of lettuce leaves as well.

I've considered chickens. But I don't think my yard/distance from neighbors is suitable. Plus...growing chickens for food/meat is a whole other level to killing and filleting fish.

I thought of freezing the veggies in stir fry bags since they do the same in the super market... But I guess snap freezing works a lot better when it comes to maintaining the foods cell integrity.

alot of people blanch their fresh picked veg before freezing them and apparently they retain alot of their nutrients and flavour and freshness this way.

Yes blanching works well for broad beans I know from experience, and I guess for things like green beans and corn as well. Parsley can be frozen and comes out as good as new flavour wise, but its so easy to grow all year , meh