Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Howdy I'm near Devonport in Tassie - we moved here a year ago from Norfolk Island. We have a few acres in the Forth Valley and I'm starting to get keen about AP again. I've got a 2000gal galvinised iron water tank that I'm not using so I'm thinking of cutting it in half and using the bottom part as a fish tank and the top half as a grow bed. I'm thinking of setting up a greenhouse over the two to keep things warm over winter. I've got a good spot picked out that gets full sun all day and am wondering what kind of temperatures I could expect (air temps and water temps) during winter when the ambient temperature outside can drop to -4ºC and sometimes not get up to 10ºC during the day, which is a short day. We've had snow recorded on our property once over the last ten years according to the previous owners. I realise there are a lot of other factors that influence the answer to this such as greenhouse material, size, design etc... I'm basing it on a simple dome or tunnel house style greenhouse (vented to reduce temps in Summer).

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that was odd wasn't it?

Ahh!!! that's me above... OzV.. now I'm TasV

Thought I'd put a little info up for other Tasmaniacs (like me):

* It is illegal to head down to the local river and fish out your starter stock. Rainbows, browns, and brook trout are found in various river systems and they are all fertile dipplids. Sterile triploids are sometimes released into The Great Lakes in the highlands purely for fishing. Atlantic salmon are found in some areas but I don't know of anyone keeping them. I do know that once some of the farms are finished with their large brood fish they are released into Lake Barrington for fishing but that;s about it.

* It is illegal to transport any fish anywhere in Tas except from an aquarium store to your home. If you want trout for an aquaponics system you need to have them delivered by an approved source or get the permits yourself (much red tap and paperwork). They would not allow me to go and pick up my own fish from the farm I have become friendly with.

* The only trout you can get for aquaculture systems here are triploid rainbows. They are all either heat shocked or pressure shocked within the first 20min of fertilisation and the success rate is near 100%. I wanted fertile diploids to raise my own replacement fish (I have a fry tank in my system that I can convert into a gravel run and I can strip the fish to fertilise the eggs myself without too much trouble) but fisheries turned down my application for fertile diploid rainbows. Instead they offered me eggs of the sterile hybrid trout they make, tiger trout, made by crossing brook trout with rainbows. This is a good option and I may pursue this line in the future. I think the educational value of hatching and raising the eggs would be awesome. My current application in with fisheries is to catch and breed river blackfish so the trout may not make a reappearance with us.

* A permit is required to keep trout in aquaculture systems. The permit must be obtained from Inland Fisheries. Contact Tim Farrell, Senior Fisheries Officer, for the paperwork. The permit needs to be renewed each year. It hasn't cost me anything to get it for the last two years but I am doing it for a school so they may have waived the application fees. You may need to register as a fish farm (about $206/year in 2011).

* All other aquaculture fish, like silver perch, are not permitted here. Estuary Perch are found in the Pieman, and other west coast systems and I would love to see someone put as much effort into culturing and stocking them as they do trout and testing their aquaculture potential. I know there is a grow on the mainland breeding bass so maybe the same principles can be applied to Estuary Perch. There are no bass down here. Black bream spend a lot of time in the fresh down here, which is something I've not seen before, coming from near Newcastle, where they grow massive. They are not very common. Not sure where they breed or how suitable they are for AP systems though and I reckon you've got next to no chance of being allowed to keep them. Freshwater blackfish is the only other alternative (unless you want to heat the water and experiment with aquarium species that grow large, like oscars (which I'd LOVE to experiment with), which you can breed yourself with no need for permits). There are no permits necessary for river blackfish except a one-off permit to catch and transport the fish ($140) from fisheries. I wonder how one might go about heating a couple of thousand litres of water to about 22-25 degrees down here??? I'd like to experiment with passive solar solutions to this... maybe also with solar panels and wind turbines etc.

* Triploid trout grow very fast!!! The advice I received from fisheries is that a triploid will double their mass every week or two in the warmer growing months and then slow down to almost nothing during the colder months. From my own fish, I had albino triploid rainbows at one stage and they went from 20cm fish to 30cm fish in a single school term (which in a three term year down here is about 14 weeks) fed on just trout pellets. They didn't taste too bad either. Non-albino triploid rainbows grew faster still because of the advantage they have over the albino's poorer eyesight (less effective at competing for food). These growth rates were obtained in a 2000L pond stocked with 20 fish.

* my biggest issue with these systems here in Tas has been, ironically, not the cold but the heat during summer. Last summer wasn't too bad as it seemed to never get warm but this summer has been a dry scorcher.

* You can grow veggies all year round in your AP system here in Tas. Through the spring and summer things like tomatoes and lettuce grow like stink on a skunk whilst brassicas like cabbage and caulis grow well during the winter. herbs grow well in the warmer months. I've also grown boat-loads of parsely in two of my beds that kept the home-ec dept stocked with parsely for the whole year. About to harvest this year's supply of parsely as well. Parsley grew all year, just really slowly in winter.

Hi tas

I was born in Burnie but have lived most of my life in the goldfields. I really need to get back down there now that Im a little older and see how much things have changed. I do miss the beautiful rainforest's.

G'Day Charlie

I'm not a 'real' Tasweigan... I've only been here 5 years.. coming into our 6th. We bought a few acres between Ulverstone and Devonport and I teach at Ulverstone High. This is almost the longest I've ever stopped anywhere and to be honerst.... I'm getting really itchy feet again... time to move and see more of this great country... but... for the first time my wife is happy where we are living and has made friends... Tassie will do that to a person... a genuinely friendly wonderful place. The thing that is making me want to move is all the rules and regulations about what I can and can't have and do... I dislike immensely being painted with the same brush that the idiots who cause such regulations to be implemented in the first place are painted with and now I have to tow the line and either do without or pay through the nose and wade through a mountain of red-tape to do the simplest of things... anyway... I reckon we'll be here quite a few more years yet!

I checked out your two systems and I have to say that the outback areas are where I'd like to explore next. I spent 5 years in Moree and loved it... I really enjoyed seeing the area around where you live.

Plenty of red dirt here thats for sure. I was out all day yesterday in aid of my yabbie hunting adventures and saw some really cool stuff but when I turned my camera on....flat battery! Dam.

My uncle and his family live in Ulverstone, small world eh.

Yep... can't do anything wrong anywhere! What's their last name?

Wow I had no idea it was so difficult for you Tassie folk, you have an unbelievably beautiful part of the world i must say.

Blackfish is something I am interested in. Are there any breeders or stockist you can purchase stock from in Tas or would you need to obtain them from waterways?

Oh I missed your question TasV

there last name is Arnol....do you know of them?

Is there anyone in hobart with a system ?
I am starting a new system.

You wanna check out tony's set up, great thread too. Havnt seen him around for a while though. Ill bump it to see if we can get a response.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6767&hilit=hobart

and colombine is another.. viewtopic.php?f=45&t=9231&hilit=hobart

I know this is a real old thread but are there many more people doing aquaponic's in Tassy.Anybody in the north east ,what fish are you using. i have only had goldfish up to now but if i am going to feed fish i might as well get something from them.( I can get a feed of fish in a couple of minutes down on the beach . mainly salmon but they taste good and are a fair size. )

Hi I am new to this site and aquaponics I would like to know if anyone would be happy to let me visit them and see how the aquaponics is setup and works

Hi
I live in Brighton in Tasmania and would really like to find people doing aquaponics in Tasmania so I can possibly check you out and get ideas on how to set mine up as I really am interested in getting going as they say I have itchy feet
I don't mind where in the state.

Cheers
Bill