Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I just put some Barra in my system today, then I turned on the computer & found this vid what a coincidences. It will be interesting to see them feed. I guess I got smarter by watching the vid.
Thanks for sharing Bullwinkle

so what kind of growth rates do you guys see with your barramundi? How many months until plate size?

Having spoken to Sue at BYAP last week about Barra for my new system, she said Summer is too short here to make it worth while. Yet you guys grew them ?. Were you heating water all year round?

Andrew
First check who posted and from where; for EB that was probably a bit of show off.
Sue gave you good advice and check the 2nd page and the post from Charlie re temps. Some have done it in Perth but the comment was always, in the end it was not worth it.
If you get a chance read dandm's thread, they are nice people and "professional peasants" so its not about showing off but more about practicality.

Cheers mate will do that. yer I was sad to see I couldn't do Barra as they are a beautiful fish, almost as good as Stripy Trumpeter in Tasmania...... Almost ...

I am actually reading up at moment on Salt water growing. I found a plant that grows in salt water called "Ulva" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulva_lactuca

Sounds interesting... Talking to an old skipper of mine in Tasmania if I can figure it all out, I am gonna have him send me some Stripy Trumpeter to "attempt" to grow. You haven't had good fish till you try them.

The reason why Sue tells people not to bother with barra is because people tend to go and buy fingerling and they will NEVER get to size here in Perth without lots of heating. We used to buy mature fish from golden ponds, practically ready to eat when they went in the system. Short summer, no problems...

Not a bad idea, but I would imagine kinda removes the whole reason for doing it lol

Even in southern areas of queensland members need to overwinter Barra in heated tanks. Theres no reason you can't grow barra but they will only be in your AP for short summer months, even then its risky in Perth where night temps can cool down rapidly.

Not really... Barra went from about 300-500g up to 500-800g or so and veg pumped out all summer.

Care to comment Mattyogas?

We bought Barra at about 15cm December 2014 and by mid April when the weather started cooling down , we had to put them into a heated tank as they were lousy on the food and hardly grew. It costs about $50 per month to heat a tank. Pfffttt! The Barra have now gone to a lovely family who wanted them as pets as after feeding them and looking at their cute little faces until last month, we couldnt eat them. They grew to about 35cm in the glass tank with heating at about 27 degrees. They loved it.

$50 a month isn't "too" bad...(it isn't great either) I wonder if I could get away with that for about 30 Barra. Heating a 2000 lt tank scares me.....

Forget heating unless you cover the whole system... Growbeds act like giant radiators.

Sof I put a heater in the tank, an put a cover of some kind over it.. that isn't enough?

Nup..... well depends on the size of the heater of course... but when a cold wind blows over and under your growbeds it sucks the heat out of the system...

I ran a 400W heater 24/7, pumped the water through black poly coiled on the roof during the day, covered the surface of the fish tank with foam, wrapped the fish tank in layers of bubble wrap, turned the pumping to growbeds off at night time, and topped the system up every morning with hot water. Still made little difference once the temps drop...