Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Skeggley you sound like my wife. She names each batch of Trout and so will not eat them. Does not bother me as they are in my tanks as a food source and a source of fertilizer while growing out.

Yum Yum.

I think eating is the ultimate form of attachment

It sure is, the fish becomes as one with you

I will try that line on my wife and see how it goes.

I'll ask the trout keepers here... I'm in Canberra and water temps have been steadily on the rise this past week.... A high as of 22 today.
Cooler weather is planned, also will harvest some fish but my smaller ones.... Well I don't think they're close to plate size yet and wondering if they will mature in time before the hot weather hits... Anyone been in a similar boat and have advice?

Keen to avoid any losses... Maybe I just eat them early?

Not quite sure how to take that...
I'm not a fan of killing animals, just ask the chooks. But yes we grow them for food and we eat them but after caring for them, feeding them every morn and night rain or shine, it's a bit hard not to care about them especially when they are but a few.
But damn they taste nice smoked with the right seasoning.... And after how hard they are to catch they're not really that hard to kill....

Skeggley I think I might have replied to the wrong comment. Oh well.

Shade everything as much as possible when the sun is shining to keep the water temp down, reduce pumping through GBs in the daytime where much the heat gets into the system, increase pumping time at night, reduce feeding rate and make sure you have lots of aeration. They are fine to eat at 250g, how small are the small ones? IF you really want to extend your growing season, buy a chiller.

I managed to keep my trout through to mid Decmeber 2 years ago, and it is generally warmer here than Canberra. It's been hotter this year, so I might not make it that far in my unchilled system.


Would you be able to plan some cool weather for me too please?

Must get a timer..... How long are the plants (lettuce, tomato, chilli, spinach, snow pees, ((see what I did there lol!!)) happy without water in day sub 30 ambient temps and sunshine?

Should the grow bed be fully dumped/half full or full before stopping the pump?

Must get timer... And try and time it to the answers above....

I hate to think what a chiller would cost me but would be handy considering we have a seasonally short hot period and a longer cold period so could do trout all year round. Any recommendations since it sounds like you have one?

Why is it every thought about AP make me want to do more with it and the back yard in general! Sorry /ramble

How much a chiller will cost you depends on how much heat you have to shift. It involes some maths. So, how many MJ do you need to extract from the water to keep it in the low 20s?


In my experience, plants in a GB will last all day with a 32C max without water being pumped through, so long as the GB is insulated to keep it from getting too hot and the media is insulated/shaded. My GB was fully drained.

I am impressed and that doesn't happen often.

Checked out your thread, remember coming across your build before just need to find the time to read it all! Very very nice all the same..

/so much to learn

Thanks CS

To get an idea of how much chilling power you might require, you need to know water volume and the temperature rise during a hot sunny day.

I need more data!!

1000-1200L water - but am looking to expand soon to a 2500-5000 litre tank so having some headroom on the chiller would be good to cope with expansion when it occurs.

Perhaps I should eat 2015's fish - pull the system apart and expand THEN get the chiller along with the new fish....

hmmm....so many thoughts! So little experience

I would suggest designing the system so that the fish can be decoupled from the plants and run as a RAS enclosed in a heavily insulated enclosure during hot spells. second hand cool room panels can be picked up quite cheaply and will pay for themselves. Far better to stop as much heat getting into the water rather than use extra energy to take it out.

Are your nights cool during the hot spells?

Probably better to take this to another thread rather than derail the trout appreciation thread..