Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Another interestin tidbit about that foaming is that my water is salted to 9ppt! Makes good foam! I've since reduced the salinity by changing out water.

Addition of 27 large eel tailed catfish, some as big as 20cm! I added them and then went away for 4 days. Came back, the tank smelled a little but all fish looked OK. Further investigation showed the pump had died. Looks like I caught it just in time.

How are the new catfish going Gemmell? They are a species that I am interested in.

Brendan

Catfish are doing OK. I don't think they like cohabiting with year old trout too much, can see some signs of stress even on the big ones, have moved some to a different tank so we'll see how that goes. The fish always seem to get a bit stressed around anzac day, could be that it suddenly gets cold, first frost makes the tomatoes release something nasty, no idea. In previous years I had massive losses, not so now days (had a catfish die) but it's still odd that something happens every year at about the same time. I'm feeding very very little at the moment until they return to health.

Tank is already 3 or 4 ppt so I don't really want to add too much more salt (even though it's not until like 16 or 17 that it becomes fatal to them), more that I find salinity levels of > 3 seem to affect seed germination and I seem to have less success when transplanting.

The good news is that the summer was kind to my trout and I have some thumpers which I'm going to see how big I can get them this year. They look healthy as, so it might be that the catfish are a bit sensitive and act like canaries in a mine...

Thats great to hear your trout are healthy and still around after summer. What sort of numbers did you get through summer and what size/weight would they be now?

Just had a quick read back Gem, and noticed you had brooks. Did you run both last year and did you notice exceptional differences in growth in them. And do you have some of both left or just the brooks?

The brooks were bigger than the rainbows - but they started bigger so I don't think it's a fair comparison.

Their flesh was much pinker than the rainbow, but their taste was much of a muchness if you ask me. Because the brooks were bigger, they came out last summer, so now I've got probably 15-20 rainbows. Had I of known it was going to be such a cold summer I would have kept more.

Time for my yearly post.

AP still going well, last years fish didn't get THAT much bigger (they were the runts after all), so I don't think I'll go to too much effort to do that again. Great to have big fish like that though.

Video here:



If you want to see me doing a really bad job of killing a trout check out this one:



What a pro eh? (yes that's sarcasm). It's worth a watch just to see the chicken coop/gutting bench that my wife built using our own kitchen cabinets/sink.

They look perfectly reasonable sized fish to me Simon...

P.S... welcome back... what have you been doing??

Awesome work nice fish! Thanks for the vids. You have a great setup. Particularly like your cover/cooling system and fish cleaning station.

Love ya work Gemmell, try not make it so far between post pleeeeeeeease!

Hows the system been, how has it been taking the trout through the year et etc

Sweet , I've read a lot of your post gemmel . Good to.see u back on the forum

Sent from my HTC Explorer A310b using Tapatalk 2

I've been starting a family and a software business - both take a lot of time. Still doing AP but I don't have as much time to cruise the forums.

I've improved the aeration / cooling system, will post a video. It makes a huge difference, you can stick your hand under the shade cloth and feel the drop in temperature. I'll get some readings when it actually gets hot again here. Only have 4 trout left so I have to keep a couple to see if this system is enough to get 'em through a hot summer!

Silver Perch in the other tank - Canberra no good for SP, take 3 years to get to a decent size unless you situate your tanks in a spot to keep it warm (mines too shady). Hopefully will eat one this year.

Hows the cooling system vid coming along Gemmel