Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Has anyone got there Barra going yet, if so how are your temps day and night and are they feeding very well.

Is everything ok, Itech?

I put 7 10-15cm Barra in last week but only have 2 left.... The biggest to I might add. Not sure if it was ba fish, too much stress or the water temp. It was down to 16c so pretty chilli for them, back up to 22.5 now and the last 2 seem good, not feeding yet though.

Yep, had mine in for 3 weeks now. Lowest main tank temp is 23 degs, though I have them in a giant plant pot in the main fish tank with a 200W heater in it so it sits at 26 degs. The pot is tied to the top of the tank so gets about 1/4 vol flushed every F&D cycle.

Note my system is in a greenhouse, I only run 1 pump cycle through the night at 3am and have the FT and sump wrapped in pool cover bubble wrap.

Sorry to hear you've lost 5 shifyt, I think 16 degs would stress them badly. They are quite large at 10-15cm, what condition were they in when you got them? I saw some that size at golden ponds a while back that looked to be in a sad condition.

IMO they really need to be above 25 degs to start chowing down big time. Ideally for fast grow rates they need to be at 28 degs. (this was the advice I was given by a guy from TAFE).

not really planning on Barra this year but my Ft has not been over 20º C as yet.

I have put two out of my six in there 15cm and my tank is getting up to 23.5 and down to 19 at night hopefully they will be ok


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Well Unfortuantley golden ponds is where I got them from. You can safely say I will be making the extra K's to Woodvale in the future. I don't really know of there condition because in new to all this. They looked a lot better than some of the fish there. It's going to be a while untill the water temp is up to that sort of temp so I'm going to buy and collect some yabbies tonight for the time being. Then re adress whether I go for SP or Barra.
I'm part way through making a solar heater to see how that goes at bringing the temp up.
I love your idea with the plant pot though, but don't really want to be using anymore electricity than I need to. I currently draw under 100 wats so chucking a 200-300W heater in seems a bit silly for me at the moment.

Yeah, the heater does up consumption, though without a well insulated system with a lot of solar heat gain, I don't think barra in Perth (from fingerlings) are a viable AP option. My strategy is to heat over the shoulder period in spring and autumn so that the growth rate is quick enough to get them to plate size in 6 months. This requires high temps though (26 degs +).

For low energy systems silvers and trout are the go in perth, if we were allowed jades, they would be a great half way house between silvers and barra.

I reckon a RAS system in a cool room panel arrangement with solar hot water heating could do barra in perth at low energy! and you could use the filtered solids in a growing system. That will be my fall back plan if I can't get mine to plate size by May.

Don't totally write of GP - My barra from there in 2012 all survived and I've heard of others doing ok too -just think they are typically in below par condition wise so need a very low stress environment to turn the corner.

My Barra went in at the beginning off spring, and there they have stayed even till now. 14deg this morning? WTF! I did a few pipe changes during the last few weeks and sent the inflow pipe to the bottom off the fish tank to create a flow of some sort for the fish to play in. I used to get a two degrees difference between the fish tank and the sump tank before. Now that difference changed after the pipe change! Today I put the in feed pipes above the water line and the temperatures are changing back to the fish tank being 2deg warmer than the sump tank once more.
My fish are fed twice per day, 4.30am and 4pm. More when I have the day off and its warmer weather.

Shifty, the temperature is not what kills them unless its sudden?
I don’t know how big your system is? But my system holds 1300ltrs so changes are real slow.
Sorry about your fish loss,

And it has worked! St 19.7 ft 21.6 barra feeding time!

Mine are back in the house tank now until things warm up except my bit one he is 30cm and doing ok but still not eating, hopefully things start to warm up soon

I was thinking of putting my barra back into the IBC tomorrow. Their not happy inside. I think it’s the cats jumping up on top of the aquarium? I am not looking forward to having to catch the gold fish first thing in the morning. But its my RDO. Remember summer starts next Monday.

geez they are going to get travel weary with all that moving around mate.

How'd you go catching the goldies Blizz? Sunny today - barra should be happy outside

Well believe it or not! Five of the fat little shits just jumped into the net the first go! I cannot believe how fat they have got in just two weeks. I have the slowest moving goldfish ever! I had them all in about two minutes. The Barra were just as easy. I flooded the grow beds and caped the pump pipe and bottom flow pipe to lower the water level first. But all that was just a waste off time, the fish wanted to be caught. They get fed more inside. ST 24.7 FT 23.9 . Yabbies are all good.

Slowboat the Barra didn’t like being inside, they like the dark better. I will have to go feed them soon.