Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Last night was our first meal of home-grown trout. We used this recipe, but substituting home-grown lemons for limes:

http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes ... ipeID=3332

The fish were served with baked potatoes and lightly steamed broccoli (AP of course).

This is what the cooked trout looked like after it came out of the oven:



I forgot to mention in a previous post that the trout were weighed were after they were gutted, so they are a bit lighter than the whole fish would have been.

That looks sooo good, I bet it tasted great.

Fantastic stuff BTB!

How would you rate that recipe? They certainly look tasty.

Delicious. Very moist, and the flesh was orange/pink thanks to the feed.

Im going to have to try this recipe. Looks and sounds so delicious

The weather is hotting up in Perth. 20 on Wed, up to 31 on Friday with a mimimum of 19. It looks like the end of trout - one way or another. Better that they are eaten by us than die from the heat (trout may think differently).

I lost two in the 1kL system through the last hot spell, so the rest were harvested this morning.

Still have about 30 remaining in the 3kL (10 harvested today). I wonder if floating ice blocks would help? I'm running the big system CF for the moment, both to help the trout and the new seedlings I've germinated - 2 types of watermelon, banana rockmelon, armenian and burbless cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and butternut pumpkin.

I'm going to put 15 silvers in the 1kL and hoping for some barramundi for the 3kL system. Then it's back to trout again!

BTB. Do you know what temperature the water in your 3000 litre system is reaching?

You can add some bags of ice but if it's getting hot then probably not worth it.

The 3kL system is now getting up to 20C by late afternoon. With a minimum of 19 on Friday (and two warmer days before it), I can't see the system staying under 22C unless I use *big* bags of ice.

OK. I've done the calculations. Assuming the temperature will get to 25 degrees unless I intervene, I need to cool the tank 5 degrees - that is:

Energy required = 4.2 x 3000 x5 =63000 kJ

the mass of ice M to transfer this heat (assuming at 0C to start)

energy = (latent heat of fusion x M) + (sensible heat x M X temperature difference)
= 335 x M + 4.2 x M x 20
= 335M + 84M
= 419M

mass of ice (M) = 63000/419

Ice required = 150kg

Looks like I'll be harvesting the rest of the trout!

Probably safest to harvest them. I got mine thru till early December last year but my system doesn't get afternoon sun.

*sigh*
I believed the weather forecast, and harvested about 50 of the trout. Up to ten are too clever to be caught. I suppose that matters less now that the weather forecast for Friday is a lot better than it was earlier in the week when I made the decision to harvest them.

At least they've got plenty of water (3kL) to swim in, perhaps it won't matter if it gets a bit warmer.

The plants are going well,even though there is no fish in the 1kL system and up to ten in the 3kL. I took the opportunity to clean out the growbeds of the non-productive brussel sprouts and put in more of the summer plants. Hopefully lots of cucumbers and melons this year!

I'll have to do a water test to see how quickly the nitrates drop when there are no fish.

I believe the weather forecasters prediction for this weekend (hot) and so we got the last of the trout out. The biggest was 595g!!!!! That's the total weight, head and all. All the other weights I've given in this thread were de-headed and gutted.

The last trout was very difficult to catch - but we finally got him after pumping about half the water out of the tank. I'd stopped topping it up recently, so it only had about 2kL in it, and all the water I pumped out went onto the vegie beds and citrus nearby. I used the opportunity to clean the tank floor and the pump inlets. With a 900mm deep tank, the only way I could do this was to stand in the tank with my wellies on.

Looks like the tank will be fishless for at least a week, so I can add more water back gradually - I don't want the chlorine in the tap water to affect the bacteria.

Another successful harvest... well done

Actually, it's my first harvest of trout!

I'm particularly pleased by the biggest trout weight because I had to cycle the new system with the trout and so I had to feed them very carefully at first until the bacteria colony had grown. However, I did get larger trout from Gavin to cancel out the reduced feeding.

Well done BTB.

Nicely, and wisely done BTB...