Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You can sort the Roos out with a very low hot wire or two or three , used in remote places to keep them away from stock water troughs . When they bound in they drop and shuffle along on all fours for the last bit and drag their tail on the wire . As with most things with animals do the exact opposite to what we first think will work .

Any updates PJL? How are you

G'day Charlie, I am well thanks mate. Just returned from Lombok last night after nine days there with my two teenagers. Can't say I saw any AP systems there but we saw plenty of bamboo, coral, fish, rice, friendly people and controlled chaos .

I have expanded my system to include a fourth IBC grow bed with another one under construction, pics to follow. They will all be draining into the same potentially undersized sump and that presents an issue. I may have to bury an IBC or three at some point to provide greater sump volume.

Currently I have 67 Silver Perch, 29 Goldfish and three Marron in the big concrete tank, just ticking it over until Rainbow Trout time. Some of the fish are a very decent size. That reminds me, I am planning to catch and eat my first SP tonight so better get going in order to dig up some bait. Hopefully I will have better luck catching a SP with my small collapsible rod than I did when I used it during my abortive fishing attempt in Lombok!

Well I missed out on catching a Silver Perch the other night because I couldn't find a worm anywhere and using a piece of Kangaroo meat as bait was a big fail!
Today was different, however. Firstly, I used an adult Black Soldier Fly as bait but lost it, I think to a large Goldfish. I then brought out the reserve bait - a pre-drilled, 11mm Skrettings native fish pellet. (Thanks to whoever it was on this forum that shared the drilling idea.)
I hooked up within 15 seconds and my little rod and reel were given a decent workout. The same trusty hook that caught 68 Rainbow Trout last season did the job again.
The SP weighed in at 817g.

Nice SP PLJ!

Nice catch PLJ. Any idea how old the silver is?

Wicked broe!

Excellent!

Thanks, fellas. It provided a delicious breakfast for three of us this morning, with enough of it leftover for the Puddle Princess to have a Silver Perch 'Sanger' for lunch at her place of work.

Cossi, this is one of the 30 or so SP that survived a whole season swimming with my 2012 batch of 100 Rainbow Trout. Since the Rainbows and SPs all went into the big concrete tank at the same time, it would have been late April 2012. The SP were fry of 3-4cm length at the time so I would guess that they would have been bred by Troutman probably around Dec 2011 but, effectively, 24 months from purchase as fry.
Two years may sound a long time to grow out a fish but I really appreciate the ability of SP to withstand a wide range of water temperatures and quality. Also, they are effectively invisible from above and, although I wouldn't recommend it to others, due to my circumstances I keep the SPs in ponds with no bird netting. I am not aware of a single loss to date, despite several visits by birds of various persuasions. Note also that my ponds have neither filtration nor aeration yet the SP seem to thrive.







* sanger, sambo - Oz slang for sandwich

Nice catch PLJ and you didn't have to travel too far to find where they were biting

Not too far at all, Joblow, and let's hope they keep biting because I need to remove as many SP and Goldfish as I can before I pick up this season's batch of RT fingerlings.

good looking Fish PLJ,

Thanks, Steve. How are your fish coming along?

Construction is under way of extra filtration for the system in the form of two 700L GBs.

That will certainly provide some bio filtration! Are you looking to grow out more fish than you already do?