Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm certainly jealous of your barramundi Gwydion.
Everything's looking great, thanks for the update.

Thanks Skeggley

Here the catch of the day... Caught in a landing net as the didn't take any baits i offered. And i have to say apart from 2 old air stones there no dirt in the fish tank at all.

I didn't measure it, but it weight in at 2.002 kg for the fillets (made 3 2-person-portions out of it, in woolies around the corner they sell NT Farm Barra Fillet for $45 a kg).

The cucumber is a Gympie gold, looking forward to taste that one as well, good for build-your-own-burger, one slice covers the whole burger, just need some decent size tomatoes to go with it.

Cheers

That's a ripper barra! Nice work


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow, some seriously decent barra there Gwydion! And your plants are looking great too. I will add your thread to my 'must read' list which is getting rather long with all the amazing systems that folks share on this forum.

In ground sump takes full advantage of all that gravity has to offer. If the soil is in contact with the totes sides that will also help in keeping water temperatures lower and more stable. Use another IBC tote for the sump, one big enough to accommodate all the water in all your grow beds, PLUS allow volume for expansion in the future. The totes are completely sealed from the toads Plumb the top with uniseals. You'll keep the toads out that way. Supposedly the toads cant climb or jump very well so you should be good to go there.

I wish I had gone the Uniseal route with my in ground sump. Some fingerling tilapia had migrated their way through my system into the sump so they took up residence there, seemed happy and healthy so I left them alone. My sump has a large rectangle cut into the top which allowed the local snake population to get in and they had a field day dining on the fingerling tilapia. Since snakes can climb, they made it into the fish tank IBC. I never would have known what was going on if I hadn't been able to sleep one night and went into the greenhouse to see what kind of bugs I had flying around and found the snakes swimming in the fish tank. Very difficult to catch snakes in deep water. I caught them and traded them to my local tilapia breeder for more useful fish. You guys have alot of nasty snakes down under and I dont know if your snakes like to eat fish.

I have now made a lid for the sump rectangle hole made of 1/4 inch galvanized wire mesh and put a large aluminum cooking tray over the hole in the fish tank. I haven't seen any more snake problems

I look forward to seeing more photos of your new system as it grows. Good luck.

Nice looking fish! What do they taste like? I've never seen them over here. That's a 5lb fish, and they sell for $20.00/lb? That fish would be worth 90-100.00! Wow, maybe I need to raise barramundi!

Hello Chris, the meat tastes very mild in flavor, it's all about the spices to make it a nice meal. When you catch them in saltwater the are even nicer, i could purge them for a week that would improve it. If you catch them in sweet water rivers or stagnant water than they can taste very muddy because of an algae they digest in these waters, but not so in aquaponics.

It's hard to get the Price because you can catch them in the wild for half of the year when the water temps are close to 30 degrees or more.

By the way they are all male until the reach 90cm length in the wild or around 70 to 80cm in captivity and become female, problem is they need both salt and fresh water to breed successful, they travel from saltwater into fresh to hatch and the young ones have to travel back to the saltwater very quickly. (I hope i got that all right)

I was close to catch another one today but one of my sheep broke a leg this morning and the day was spent with butchering and cleaning up.

One of my mates from work smoked two fillets and that was nice too, with some fresh lettuce and red onions on with bread.

Ohh and on another note, that gympie gold cucumber was only good for the chicken and won't be planted again. we had some very nice Lebanese cucumber and sumo long, fresh and pickled both good.

Sounds like a salmon.

But white flesh.

Today's catch was a bit smaller but still food for 5 days, 3 times fillets and 2 days "deconstructed fish cakes" (fish pan fried with rice, veggies and egg) for 2 persons, 1.65kg all up

Unfortunately we had one bag of fish food at the bottom of the chest fridge which was mouldy, so we had to feed it to the black soldier flies, i put in 2kg of 5mm pellets and they were gone the next day. Hungry things, they also cleaned a whole sheep head in 4 days, i gonna take a picture of the Barra frame later today and the day after. They don't even leave bones, all gone including the fish head after around 4days. Lots of protein and calcium for the chickens/quail.

they certainly are impressive recyclers!

Are you looking at getting any barra fingerlings in the near future Gwyd?

Cheers
Alan

Hello Myst

Actually yes i am, i want to change my setup and replace the growbeds with some poly ones from terracorp, but i have to wait until all the big Barra are gone/frozen.

Unfortunately the government fishery is not selling them anymore but i got a mate who deals in corals and reef fish. He has contacts to the Barra farms and he buys Barra in lots of 500and sells them on. He is expecting fingerling every 3months or so,i hope i am ready when he gets the next lot. I am thinking of buying 50 again.

Do you need some as well?

Cheers

yes please! I'd only be after 20 though, 50 would very rapidly out grow my little 2500L system.