Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

[quote="TasV"]I would use my ultralight rod/reel outfit with a small soft-plastic on it lol[/quote]

What is a soft-plastic?????

I have thought of fishing for them in my 2000L round tank but dont want to hook any of the smaller ones, and possibly kill them if they swallow the hook

We were worried about that too, and did catch a few small ones but the hook just caught in their mouth so it was ok to unhook them and put them back. Fishing is fun, but next time we plan to try just netting as they come up to feed.

When we swim with them, they seem totally relaxed and not skittish at all, so hopefully scooping up with a net won't put them off their feed for a few days!! Might try it this weekend!

Soft plastic lures http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 173812.htm

Aha! We did try one, the same as at the top of the picture on the site, but they just had a little nibble then weren't interested at all. The bait on the other hand......

Well I gave the fishing a go, see my thread. Thanks for the encouragement

Just spoke to a guy this morning who has a swimming pool system that's been doing really well, he's very happy with it, I think for memory they have 200 fish and 4 of our beds with a mixture of different media and plants, as well as a few floating pots and half barrels on the bottom of the pool with lilies in them.

I forgot to get your forum name, but who ever you are remember you promised you'd put up some pictures..

Oooh, would be interested in seeing those pics! Especially now we are planning on setting up grow beds. Do they have the four grow beds connected to the pool? We were thinking we should get the separate system but maybe we need to just add them to what we have already.

Well, we now have a 'backyard system' from BYAP (thanks guys!!) in addition to running fish in the swimming pool! As mentioned earlier, we have switched to silver perch in the pool, and they are growing very well. The benefits of being able to add fingerlings and yet keep the bigger eating fish is really great.

With the aquaponics system we plan to continue with the trout in winter/barra in summer that we used to do in the pool, and have the constant supply of perch from the pool.

We had to do some land works to fit the system in, remove the old pool fence, lay about 100 slabs, move the biofilter, redo some brick paving, put in a retaining wall........but it is now done and everything is functioning! We took water from the pool to fill the fish tank so presumably the system will be well on its way from the beginning.

We were a bit late getting an order in to Troutman for our trout, so went to Golden Ponds and put 50 in the tank on Friday.........only to get up in the morning to see several on the ground. Can't believe we didn't realise, having had trout in the pool and knowing they leap
Another trip to Golden Ponds yesterday brought the number back up to 55, and needless to say they now have a net over the top.

I'm surprised the dog didn't eat the trout (mine would have). If they did, you wouldn't have any evidence of fish losses! I also covered my FT to stop a certain dog (see avatar) having a swim with the fishes.

He he

The dogs would have eaten them- but we were out early and saw the fish on the ground before the dogs did!

Fortunately they don't swim in the pool, so hopefully won't try in the FT either!!

Yikes! We had forgotten what it was like to start off from scratch! We have had high ammonia and nitrites already (trout only went in on Friday). Not sure if that was due to using the water from the pool, though that had zero ammonia and nitrites. We have done some partial water changes over the last two days and although the readings are still high the fish seem very happy today. Fingers crossed.

Well, all is going well...four weeks on and the plants are growing beautifully-cropping lettuce leaves and mizuna already. The ammonia levels have dropped right down though the nitrites went up to 2.00 last week but are now back to 1.00, so everything is now moving in the right direction.

After seeing so many great systems on this forum it is great to 'join in', despite having grown fish and some plants in our swimming pool for over 4 yours now. We feel like we are really getting it right- perch in the pool so it doesn't matter when we catch them and trout/barra in the fish tank where it will be much easier to harvest at the appropriate time.

Nice work