Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I normally just bbq the trout, but I'm sure I could invent some sort of cherry sauce to go with them I'll have to do some recipe experimentation with cherries and herbs.

I chucked in 30g of pellets this morning and could hear them eating over on the far side of the FT under the cover, so that's a good sign. I'll have a more detailed look later to check that all have survived the big change in latitude.... and see if I can spot the Murray Cod, which isnt much larger than the trout, and must be hungry, as I dont think it has eaten anything I've given it in the past month- maybe it's grazing on the biofilm.

Colours, I had a job in Armidale so was going past Loomberah anyway,but yes it was a long day.

Gordon, it will be interesting to see how the trout from two different sources and the salmon compare over the next five months.

The new trout are getting stuck into the pellets today, I only fed them 100g, but they would have taken more. I'll slowly up the amount each day. One of them, not sure if the same one as yesterday, seemed to be staying fairly still on the bottom for a fair time this morning.
The average size of both lots are pretty similar I reckon, the Arc-en-Ciel ones were a greater range in size, some of them are still significantly smaller than the Tumut trout.

Or he now have a choice of sushi..
..
.

I was wondering about that cod, and their reputation for eating other fish.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few fatalities just from the stress of the last few days from raceway to bluebarrel to my system to bluebarrel to your system covering 7 or 8 hundred kilometres, actually its a testamont to how tough these RTs are .

I figure the RT will grow a lot faster, and will be larger than the MC in a month or 2, and with the water averaging 12-13C ATM and generally on the way down, the MC wont be growing much until late in the year.

One of the new trout is swimming around upside down, but manages to right itself every now and then for a short time. It does look to be of a bit "taller" proportions than the rest of them, maybe its swim bladder is too full. Not sure if I should leave it or pull it out at this stage. There's still one that stays on the bottom a fair bit, but no deaths so far.

The'll eat right in front of me in the open part of the tank now- no shying away to the far side under the cover at feeding time.

I've got a goldfish that does the same thing, I've tried giving him peas, and that sort of stuff, but I think it's a genetic thing, none of the others have anything similar.

He seems happy enough, just likes an upside down swim every now and again.

One the trout swims near the surface a fair bit of the time, and I can touch it easily enough, although it takes off if I try to lift it. I think it is blind - when I move my fingers around right in front or beside it, it has no reaction. I'm not sure how it manages to eat anything, and it is certainly a bit less chunky than the rest of them.

The Murray Cod continues to lurk on the far side of the tank near the bottom, hard to see behind the trout most of the time, I'm not sure if it gets a chance to eat any of the pellets before the trout devour them all. I'm feeding them ~200-250g most days. NO2 always 0-0.25pm, and salinity currently 493ppm, down after all the rain. pH has been 6-6.2, and I've been adding about 20g KOH most days.

Well, the blind trout probably wont starve, so long as I throw in enough pellets for a reasonable number of them to stay on the surface for a few mins. I experimented today by dropping pellets in front of it as it swam around right in front of me, and if it bumps into a pellet with its head, it manages to eat it. It eats by feel alone!

The rest of them continue to eat and grow very well I haven't spotted the upside down swimmer for a few days, so maybe it has recovered.

No updates for a while, so... here we go.
Upside down swimmer has righted itself and is no longer identifiable amongst the masses. Blind fish is still blind, and alive, but not growing as fast as the rest.
Treatment with 3ppt salinity and a week of UV steriliser appears to have dealt with the Ich they arrived with, no deaths.

It's been cold, snow fell a couple of times, and settled once, and frosts down to -2C saw the FT water down to just over 5C. These Tumut sourced (via Rendang) trout appear to eat in water temps down to about 6-7C, but below that they are not very interested in feeding.
There was even enough snow for a bit of skiing on the hill, although a lot had melted by this time


The banana appears to have survived the cold and snow, and GB #8 is still slowly sinking due to its weight. The pot hasnt burst yet, but there's a serious amount of tension and stretching going on. It's probably close to 3.5m high now, so much for being a dwarf red dacca!


Water temps over recent months, no time to compile the usual air +water temp graphs ATM



Things are starting to grow a bit faster now it's not so cold, there are some Romanescu brocolli ready to harvest, and we made a vast amount (~8 litres) of tabouli a week ago with parsley (+spring onion, preserved tomato and wheat) from the AP, although the plants are still huge now and need another big harvest.
Most days for me lately it's been tabouli on buttered toast for breakfast, with cheese melted over it on toast for lunch, or mixed in with whatever I'm cooking for dinner, and finally I'm into the last 2l container of it!

I picked the first Romanesco yesterday, and I think we'll be eating quite a few of them over the next month or 2.

At over 1kg it's a decent size


Also made another huge batch of tabouli today, but struggling to eat it faster than it's growing on just the 2 large plants, and there are heaps of smaller plants coming on.

You use Lacewings to control white fly ?

I tried, but it was a dismal failure, after releasing them, I never saw a single lacewing. Meanwhile, outside the green house, I'd see them reasonably often, so I wont be wasting my money buying them again.

Gordon are you still applying blood and bone? Nothing seems to want to grow this year and all my parameters are fine. Was thinking of supplementing but don't want to kill the fish.