Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice one mate watched the vids in thumb nail size couldn't watch in full screen well done buddy

Looks good mate, just read the whole thread - very impressed.

I'd be interested to know how the yabbies come along...I've tried a bit but only had my sump tank to use. If I do anything similar to you I'll need a better pump as mines at its limit...if it clogs up at all my GBs dont syphon properly due to lack of inflow. Its only a 3000lph job and a cheapo at that.

With the yabbies I found them far to territorial and would always end up with casualties until I got down to 1 dominant male and maybe some smaller yabbies hiding. At one stage I had a few berried up females and threw in a heap of flyscreen balled up so the babies would have somewhere to hide...after a while i had to clean out the sump as I had a bit of a flatworm outbreak and when I cleaned it out I only found 3 little yabbies about 3-5mm long. Quite disappointing really.

The next berried up female I put into separate glass fish tank and one morning I woke up to no eggs...she'd eaten them all!

They can be tricky to breed without anywhere for them to burrow so maybe your gravel will help. You can get up to 300+ babies from one female. One last thing, in your breeding tubs I would switch your ratios around if you can. 1 male can fertilise plenty of females so if you have the numbers i'd do 4-6 females to 1-2 males.

OMFG! REALLY!?! How did I not know this until now!!!???

We have a huge slug problem so for years I have been heavy handed with the iron based slug pellets. Now I know why my kale, lettuce and broccoli keep bolting!

Love the work with the yabbie tanks, Hezzy.

I found heating and clamping one side of the pipes allows moulting yabbies to seek refuge without thread of attack from behind.

Hi Hezzy, just had a read through mate great looking system howz the yabbies going mate

Hi konart
I think I got the yabbie ratio off here from someone but so far I've lost one that's it. They have plenty of places to hide an I find feeding them small amounts regularly helps stop fighting.
I have recently added a bio filter and also some genetically modified blue yabbies

Hopefully you catch your kale lettuce an broccoli

Thanks Charlie I might do that, they shed their shells regularly at the moment,
What sort of food did you feed yours Charlie.
And how long does the female hold eggs fir

The eggs are usually attached to the pleopods for approx 12 - 16 weeks, the time frame is mostly temperature dependant so this will vary depending on time of year and location. It is difficult to determine the time frame by looking at the eggs themselves but they do go through a transformation whilst attached to the underside of the tail during incubation.

When they head off away from mum they will feed on phytoplankton and microscopic aquatic organisms etc within the tank, you won't need to feed them for some time.

I fed the older ones commercial marron pellet, pig breeder mixes and lupins during the warmer months. Marron pellets are sinking pellets and have all the goodies required for health and growth. You could then get maximum health and growth with minimal effort. In the cooler months when they become dormant they won't eat much but like silvers I switch to cheap cocktail prawns and they will eat a little more than usual.

I've finally cracked the code fellas. I have seven Redfin in my tank and there healthy and now eating 5mm fish pellets,
It took six weeks of training but I've done it and there smashing pellets , so happy..
Also have a fish breeding mop in tank so when there older they can breed ..
And I also have 9 berried female yabbies in my yabbie tank,
All happening here

what fish can't you use in aquaponics ?

Hezzy, all looking good, well done on the Redfin

Thanks joblow,
I trained smaller fish and they have been alive for two months, but eating pellets gracefully now

Also can't Waite for the yabbies to be born, that will be awsome