Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Its been done for you , just didn't want you to be receiving a lot of unsolicited phone calls and/or mail

Okey dokey.
Never really thought of that.
I get so much spam already I'm kind of used to it.
Thanks

Les, the posting god, is suggesting that amoung the many good people that will see your personal information, there may be a malevolant soul or two.

I have been told by my wife and several friends that my web presence has added a risk factor. People can get a profile and location for you. After that, you are no longer a low profile person. All you have to do is express an opinion someone takes offense to, or look like you have something someone would like to take, or .........

It is a risky world and perhaps the prudent thing is to stay hunkered down. I compromise to gain all the value that is also out there on the web. I guess that blend of risk/reward is where I am comfortable.

Everyone has to decide where they are comfortable. I think LKB's suggestion is a good one.

Good on ya EllKayBee... lookiing out for the other members
I also get the silver perch feed from the same mod Jamie - mine should get here in 2 or 3 days - but I have NOW found that they can be fed Barra feed and there is a supplier just outside cairns who will sell me a bag at a time (25kg for +- $65)... works out better with the local people when I have to add ing postage... Growbest were very helpful tho and posted off my order before I even paid for it

week 11.
pH 6.46 - added more dolomite (becoming a regular event)
Nitrates 30ppm.
Eggplant fruit nearly full size and 2 others on the way on same plant - I just love the fantastic growth in ap The soil one that started so well is pretty insect-chewed and the fruit growth tapered off some time ago.
I was speaking to the guys at growbest about the feed being "LAP" - Land Animal Protein Free. He reckons the jades don't develop the full amount of omega 3 if they get land animal proteins. I guess the animal fats get layed down instead of the good oil (oils aint oils).
I was thinking about trying dog food - but not any more

Jaymie, that is interesting about LAP. Where does BSF protein fit in the picture? What about worms and insects? Is omega 3 only from fish eating fish? Hope not. What about guppies fed on BSF then fed to food fish. Sooo many questions and sooo few answers. I think using our minds to solve all these problems will hold back senility for a while. My memory is already gone, but I think my problem solving skills are still working. Or would I know if they were going too??? Oh well it keeps me out of trouble anyway.

That is certainly interesting about the Omega 3. I'd take it with a grain of salt given that the perch are after all a freshwater fish and their natural diets would be made up of all sorts of things - including a large amount of non animal matter (they are afterall omnivores). Also - any animal protein that is in the fish food referred to is bound to be from the sea (from trawlers raping the sea). Given that sea animals are not a natural feed for the perch, I find it difficult to believe the claims. Is it that jade perch grown naturally in rivers etc don't have the omega 3 levels.

We have to of course keep in mind that it is in the interests of the producers of this food for people to think that using theirs is the way to go if they want their fish to provide the Omega 3.

Would be good to know though - cause according to this our homegrown diets would not be a good move - but I'll certainly still be heading in that direction. Sustainability is one of the things many of us are after in AP and using sea creature protein in our food does not fit into this desire.

Jamie - looks like the dolomite is not fixing the PH that well. Maybe you should give the CaCO3 a go. Since I put it in my system the PH has been steady at 7.2. I'm sure the dolomite will still come in useful for something else.

I did a Google on "LAP" - didn't get much except for this
article

This suggestion is you can get a form of "mad cow desease" from all the crap they put into the LAP - those dodgy self-replicating prions that slowly convert your brain to mush

My own theory is that maybe - like with mammals - any fat taken into the diet is immediately stored in fat cells - no processing required.
So if you eat lard you end up with lard hanging around your body
On the other hand - eat virgin olive oil and you'll taste like a nice bit of Italian
So - to guarantee lots of omega 3 - feed the fish omega 3!

VB - the dolomite is ok - I just use it in controlled amounts. I thought a steady drift to acid was a normal feature of ap?

but not a feature we want

You are correct that a steady drift to acid is normal - but this can be prevented by buffering the system with carbonate. The CaCO3 would appear to disolve as it is needed and buffers the system at ph of 7.2. I will only have to add again once it is all used up. Over time I will get an idea of how much to add how often. My PH has been steady for weeks, yet I have serious nitrification going on as I feed the fish between 700gm and 1kg of food per week (depending on time issues with me finding time to feed).

Bugger nearly finished a post and then computer did something

Omega 3 fatty acids are synthesised by algae. don't know if there are any species of freshwater algae that do so.

Two articles that deal with meat meal replacing fish meal are:



and



First article concludes that meat meal can substantially or even totally replace fish meal form the diets of most fish species. With the proviso that the essential fatty acids are provided in the balance of the diet.

The second article concludes that in prawns, silver perch and barramundi meat meal partially or totally replaced fish meal (15% 30% replacement prawns, upto 100% replacement SP and Barra) with out effecting growth rate, system pollution (actually it was was less in Bara trial) and taste.

These studies are asking questions about meatmeal in terms of protein supply. Since omega 3's are fatty acids that is a different question. For this reason in 100% meatmeal diets of SP fish oils were inlcuded in the feed providing the essential fatty acids that article one talked about (bara diet info was a bit sketcy so I don't know where their Omega 3 were from.)

One the BSE question first article concluded:


A fair bit of money is being thrown at this question because of the potentail to replace expensive fish meal with cheaper meat meal. The second article is Australian and expounded on the potential trade opportunity to Aaustralian meat producers as they are known to be BSE free and as such don't represent a BSE health risk.

VB

From the research I've done tonight there would be nothing wrong with our home grown diets per se its just their nutritional value would be different. Thats not to say bad or worse just different. I did find some articles on plant derived omega 3 and 6 FAs included in feeds where fishmeal had been replaced 100% but I lost them when my computer had a hissy fit. That would mean it might be possible to inlcude them in our own foods. On the other hand I also found an article that suggested that plant derived FAs were inefficiently uitlised in fish foods (also lost in hissy fit).

DB

Found a great article on how to produce BSF rich in omega 3 FAs. You'll never gues how....

Stuart

Feed them fish offal!

Hahaha

Good one Stuart. We my never know the exact answer, but I guess we can't go wrong feeding a balanced diet.

Excellent Stuart. And when I clean my fish, I will feed the scrap to BSF and then BSF larvae to the fish.

Stuart, any hot links to articles you can provide would be appreciated. You appear to be an excellent web article researcher/searcher. Thanks.

The omegas from veggies is promising for our self sufficiency goals.

Mad cow and old age have the same symptoms. I may never know if I get it

I am not very good with the hot link thing mainly because I'm on dial up. I get a whole stack of things down loading and saved to my hard disk and then read over them later. Very confusingly when I have tried to go back and find various articles for the links I have had trouble finding them. You would think that when you have the exact title and author etc it would be easy. Whats often been happening is that I find the article in my drag net researching and then when I go back to find the article I'm only getting the abstract and give us money if you want the rest the article website.

Very annoying. Any article I qoute I'll probably save to HD so if I cant find the article again on the web I can post them somewhere. Backyard AP library perhaps?

I've got another funny BSF one but I'll put that in the BSF thread.

Stuart.