Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here is a picture of the biggest of the fish, 1572gms and just under 500mm long and 1369 gutted and gilled


The fish had not been fed much for the last couple of months and were considerably leaner.

That was enough work for Boxing day and so we left the rest for a couple more days. I was thinking of leaving the last 5 to see how they would go as suggested by Mathew but with no respite from the heat in sight and the fish starting to look stressed as the temps climbed up to 27C we decided to take the rest out on Saturday.

On Boxing Day the fish were in their Christmas colours with reds and pink and well you know looking like a rainbow trout. On the Saturday finding the fish was a challenge as they had all changed colour to the green tank and were well camouflaged. SWMBO who is not going to be beaten by a few fish spent then next 20 mins trying to find and catch them. In the end there was one left by my reckoning but we could not see him or catch him no matter how many times we ran the nets around the tank. Yet that afternoon if you stood very still you could see part of the green tank bottom move.

After processing the last of the fish I was happy to leave this one in the tank. The water temps were getting up and were sitting at 27 and 28 (25/26 at night) through most of Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I was certain the heat would kill the bugger but nope he happily swam around his now very empty tank. Only once did he seem stressed but as we were going out for new years eve I did not have time to get him out. That night (well morning ) when we got home he was happily swimming on the bottom of the tank doing a great impression of a tank bottom. If he can survive this heatwave he can survive summer.

Stay tuned

and just to show that not all my fish are obese especially now that they have been on a diet, here is a 1kg fish that is 400mm long and looking more like a trout.



Some of the fish had strange knobs on their tails. Any Idea what they are?




When I get some Time I will add up the live weights, gilled and gutted weights and the amount of food consumed (at a guess at least a bag and a half so approx 30kg).

Only 3 Months to go 'til trout season again.

Wow dude. Those are some massive fish.

They sure make the minnows that some of us (namely me ) grew look quite pathetic!

Nice work Marc

Got no idea what those lumps are

thanks guys. Now Im off to see how George (the last trout) went after the "freezing" temps we has overnight -(The Doona was back on the bed)

... now that's more like it....

Awesome harvest marc

Thanks guys.
After havesting the trout and going back to feed the silvers, i'm seriously reconsidering my fish mix. I think more trout and less silvers is in order.
The silvers would only have to provide nitrates over Jan to March.

Cleaned up and topped off half of the grow beds with hydroton yesterday so the levels are up as high as they can be. they now look like new. Turned all the taps to the grow beds off and cleaned out the distribution pipes. I was surprised how much the flow increased and how much crap came out of the pipes.

The lone trout is very happy now that the water temps are down to 19c. Silvers not so happy as they were when it was up in the mid 20s

If you bought an ice machine and a generator you could get trout all year Marc

Would have to be a bloody big ice machine...

Hence the generator to run it

it would be cheaper to move to the bottom of the hill where it is even cooler.

i noticed something interesting today. Since harvesting the trout between Christmas and new year the pH has been steadily rising. Before i was adding a couple of tablespoons of hydrated lime 3 times a week to keep the pH around 6.2. I also have a fair bit of crushed limestone and shells in the system as well. Anyhow when i tested yesterday the pH was not dropping but rising and was up to 6.8.
Anyone else experienced that?

The limestone and shells will be buffering your PH up.