Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Way to go! How mang yabbies you got in there?

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Eleven! Ten that I got delivered a month ago, and one that I found in the remains of my test system while I was tidying up the other day - I'd thought that both the yabbies in there went walkabout months ago, but it turns out that one was still in there and really good at hiding.

My replacement silver perch arrive today! I've got the quarantine tub all set up and waiting for them; how long they stay in it will depend on how they look when they arrive and how they react to being salt bathed.

yay I hope they do well this time

Cool Mel, we can have quarantine races as I get mine tomorrow!

Pete.

Neato! We'll have an equal start, 'cause mine didn't arrive today - hopefully they'll show up nice and early tomorrow. (Also hopefully they were packaged with lots of oxygen and no food beforehand and will be fine in their bags that long...)

How far do they have to come? I hope they're not overnighting in some depot.
I'm going to collect from Buxton 35 km away. BTW you are 414 km away as the crow flies.

Pete.

They apparently did overnight at the depot here in Canberra, because the courier didn't have them flagged as live fish in the system. Oy vey. But! They arrived this morning, and the difference between these and the first lot was immediately obvious - they were all alive and active, looking very healthy! Also very lively - they were trying to jump out of the water.

Here they are sitting in the tub I used to acclimatise them to my system water:


I just tipped them straight in with all the water from their bags, put in an airstone, and then put in a really slow trickle of system water to gradually match pH and temperature etc:


Once it had filled up a bit I scooped some water out and kept trickling more in. I kept doing that until I figured they were ready, then netted them out as gently as possible and put them in the quarantine tub... which I forgot to take a picture of. Oops. I'll take a pic when I check on them later. Anyway, it's the tub that used to be the fish tank for my teeny test system, pumping up to one of my growbeds that's been isolated from the main system; the growbed is running constant flood and draining back down to the tub. The water level in the tub is low enough that I think they won't be able to jump over the edge, and I've got it covered with some shadecloth and then opaque white plastic to keep it from heating up in the sun.

I finally got a decent picture of the ones already in the system, too! Goldies at the top and silver perch scooting around below them:


When I feed them, I put goldfish food in one end of the tank to decoy them away, and pellets for the perch in the other end. The air coming up in the middle keeps them separate and it seems to be working fine so far!

I wasn't expecting a slug to take up residence in the fish tank above the water and cheerfully cruise around eating algae, but this one seems to have done just that! It's been there happily munching away for the last three days or so:


I figure so long as it's not going after my plants it can stay there and enjoy itself.

Finally, cute solitary bee:

The little quarantine tub:



It's small enough that they wouldn't be able to stay in it for long if it didn't have a full growbed acting as filtration. I'm not planning to get any more fish any time soon (she says, knowing perfectly well that she probably will anyway because FISHIES), and before I get any more I want to get an IBC or similar so I can set up a decent-sized quarantine system.

And for anyone who's thinking that a quarantine system is not going to be any good at actually quarantining things if the fish are carrying something, it gets into the growbed, and then the growbed gets connected back into the main system - you are completely correct! Which is why once the fish have been moved into the system (after a good salt bath etc) I will be draining the water out of the quarantine tub and growbed, replacing it with fresh water containing about 8-10ppt salt, running it like that for a week, then draining and flushing again. All the plants in that growbed should do just fine with that much salt short term, and my water temperature has bumped up high enough that one week should be enough time to clear out ich or any similar nasties.

Quarantine is over - the fish got a half hour strong salt bath and are now in the system with the others. If there had been any signs of problems I would have kept them in there, but as it was they had no visible symptoms (physical or behavioural) and staying in the quarantine tub was probably going to stress them into having problems - the water temperature was swinging way more than I was happy with despite me doing what I could to shade it. Plus, we've been having fairly heavy rain on and off for the past few days, and the growbed I was using as the quarantine system filter was collecting enough to nearly overflow the tub a couple of times, so the pH was all over the place too. Definitely gotta get an IBC or similar for future quarantines so there'll be enough water volume to cushion things!

Good to hear Mel - so much less stressful for you and the fish when it all goes smoothly.

>> They apparently did overnight at the depot here in Canberra, because the courier didn't have them flagged as live fish in the system. Oy vey. But! They arrived this morning, and the difference between these and the first lot was immediately obvious - they were all alive and active, looking very healthy!

It is amazing that they suffered so little after that many hours or so in the transport bag. By looks of your tub they had a fairly decent volume of transport water and must have had a good shot of air/oxygen.

weird you guys having heap of rain while Sydney is having heat & bushfires. Amazing what a difference a couple of hundred km's makes.

p.s. how did the gudgeons go and where did they end up in the system ? Were they Aust natives.

Yeah, weather is funky - our expected maximum temperature today is ten degrees lower than we got a couple of days ago, or that is expected for later this week, and by Wednesday we should be back to sunny all day.

The fish were packed really well; even the ones in the one bag that deflated a bit seemed perfectly fine. The shipping FAQ for livefish.com does say that their usual shipping times are 24-48 hours, so they must set them up to be OK for a couple of days plus wiggle room.

My nitrates are still reading zero, but there's definitely more in there being used by the plants - the tomatoes have been sitting there sulking since they went in, but in the two weeks since Batch One went into the system they've put on a flush of new healthy-looking growth. The rainbow chard are also bulking up a bit.

The rain has stopped and we should have clear weather for at least a week, so this afternoon as soon as the sun is off the growbeds I'll be mixing up some Dipel and spraying it on absolutely everything. I fed four caterpillars to the fish and squashed at least ten more that were too small to grab today!

*cracks knuckles* Let's see if I can get this right!

Batch 1 (and the sneaky uncatchable goldfish) feeding:




Batch 2 being released:

Nice! Warmer weather will have the fish and the plants rocking.

Cool videos Mel.

Pete.