Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Been on here a while now, browsing, reading and learning and am yet to say hello to anyone except Charlie who I already know.

So, Hi All

I had heard people talk of aquaponics for a while and have been keen to check it out. I have now finally made the plunge and hijak the pond my wife now wants. She has gotten hold of a moulded pond with a waterfall type attachment that is about 200L.

I'm yet to finalise how I am going to do it but have many ideas.

Although I am yet to have this first system up and running, my enthusiam from reading about other users has led me to get hold of a couple of IBC's for and expandable second system.

Anyway, I wanted some yabbies for the footy on the weekend and thought I would cheat and get some from the local yabby farm. I had a good chat to the chap who ran the place and he was very happy to chat about his setup. I'm sure some of you would be interested so I will share what I can recall.

He currently only runs three tanks and has the yabbies sorted acording to weight and no longer breeds. This is down 6 gal tanks, and about another 6 concrete tanks.

He sources his yabbies from farmers who are encourage to feed their yabbies by offering a higher price per kilo for larger yabbies. However, he said many of the dams in the immediate area no longer held yabbies as they have been killed off by the runnoff from the chemicals used in growing canola. He has gone from processing about 7tonnes to 1tonnes per annun as a result of this.

He filters his tanks in two large biofilters which are done on a timer. Airation is also performed on a timer and alters frequency between summer and winter.

By the way, the yabbies were good, especially the jar of pickled ones.

Anyway hera are a couple of pics to look at:

Welcome to the forum champ...officially that is

Looks like you have become an adict like the rest of us and you are very welcomed and cant wait to see what you come up with.

Glad to hear you are a fellow lover of the crustacean kind too. Great pics too

Such a shame the conola industry has pretty much destroyed this blokes lifestyle, is there anything else he is doing or primarily yabbies?

What kind of stock densities would he achieve in the tanks? I will definately have to do a visit next time Im down your way.

Looking forward to seeing your progress

p.s. gee your young fella has grown!

I'm not sure if this was ever his full time job but I would have thought so at one stage. He now only does it as a hobby though. At one stage he also kept marron.

Colud not give any specifcs in terms of stock densities but thay were by no means densly poluplated. He essentially has three pieces of shade colth is the tank that was simply dropped all srunched up as the hide for the yabbies. These pieces of shade cloth covered no more than 1 square meter and were where all the yabbies were congregating. He also mentioned that he is actually winding down for the winter while most of the tourist are out of town.

I have posted a picture that i didn't post last time due to the poor image qulaity but will give you an idea of the densities under the shade cloth. You can also see by the bleached claw that he hasn't resolved the yabbies from attacking themselves.



The kids grow up real quick. Too quick.

Charlie, I also bet you were watching the footy all weekend.

I'd love to get some yabbies. I am just trying to work them into my system.