Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After another "learning" experience which saw the deaths, this time, of 46,almost plate size, barra. This now has to be close to 300 barra at over $10 each and I have not eaten one. I am interested to know if anyone out their knows where I can source a cheaper fish from up here in the pilbara.

I'd be seriously concentrating on what's gone wrong and how to fix it before getting more.. I don't think I've haven't killed that many fish in over 10 years of AP.

300 fish

I feel for you, don't get me wrong, but that seems like a lot of learnings.

Crappy luck ? Cappy power supply ?

What's the total specifications of your system? Maybe a reconsideration on paper will save your wallet and the fish from having the worst end of the deal as you "learn"?

Hi Wickham,
Do you know what caused the death of the fish?
I think your last post was about tomato roots in the growbeds and I just wonder if you may have pulled apart a whole growbed, when you had a full load of fish?
I do know of others in the Pilbara that have got Silver perch in their systems, I think they ordered online, they are slower growing than Barramundi and the warm temperatures may be a bit of a problem so it would be helpful to know what your water temperatures get up to?

This time, we had nightly power cuts for a week lasting up to 4 hours, everything was great, system was running well after cleaning out pipes etc. On the last night, the scheduled power cut of 4 hours lasted for well over 6. When I went to feed them in the am they were all dead. I tested the water ASAP and all readings were Ok. I can only assume that the battery back up for the air blowers wasn't enough for the fish.

From reading your past posts you had 60 Barra in a 1000L tank in 2010, If you were running the same stocking density this year they would not take long to die once the supplimentary O2 cut out. I think I would have 20 Barra max in a tank that size, and even then I would start thinning them out when they approach plate size.

At one stage I had 200 silver perch of various size in a 4,500L tank and they were fine until they grew bigger and stated consuming more O2, them one short back out and all but 10 perished. The only cause was over stocking, I now limit myself to 50 trout in the same size tank and they don't even notice a 4 hour black out. The lesson I learnt is that low stocking density gives you a big margin for error.

And still lets you grow lots and lots of veges.....

When we camped at skull springs there were many pools that had a lot of pretty large fish in them, they were a local freshwater mullet. The aboriginal name for these fish is Pilbara. We did not catch any as we had no tackle, but I wonder if they would be as food as ocean mullet

John

Found a picture, at http://fishwrecked.com/image/even-mulle ... ge-pilbara

That looks like a Diamond Scale Mullet to me, johnfenn, judging by its black edges scales and truncated tail. This is a marine species but like many mullet types, will travel well up estuaries into almost fresh water.
I ate one that I caught in Darwin Harbour and it was pretty awful, but maybe it was the way I cooked it since they have a reputation for being very good eating (by mullet standards, at least).

The ones we saw were about 400k east of marble bar in the Rudel River, definitely fresh water

John, I don't doubt the fish you saw were in fresh water. I reckon, though, that there may be a reason to doubt that the fish you saw were the same species as the mullet in the link you posted.
Cheers.