Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Story about some farmers who diversified into barramundi faming in central Qld, on ABCTV

Landline
Sunday 28th August at 12:00 pm

I reckon it's the future - aquaculture and aquaponics and the like. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have directed my youthful energies toward learning all I could about these areas of food development. Tried encouraging my children to look into these but they don't seem to think it is worth pursuing. Probably thinking dad's on again about his AP thing.
I occasionally read about this school or that putting aquaponics to the children. Hopefully some will have an interest sparked. We need more "troutman".
I'll look forward to watching this. Thanks Gunagulla.

Watched Landline and caught the story about the beef farmers growing barra - the barra are bringing in more dollars than their beef. Million dollar set up and a quick google brings up an article about what they are doing. They started off with 40+ % mortality rate but are working on getting it down to 10% now. I couldn't help but think that it was a wasted operation - all that nutrient rich water I guess is just being plumbed through filters instead of through grow beds full of plants. Grow beds would quickly bring their mortality rates down to almost zip. I gather they are getting the fingerlings from a supplier and just growing the beggers for market.
Interesting story and one that I suspect will become more common in the coming decade.

Yea, but even 10% sounds quite high. I didn't quite figure out what they are doing with the wastes in the Landline story, other than not growing vegetables. EDIT, checked online and they are using it on the grass to feed the cattle.
It was clear they were running very high stocking rates, reinforced by the statement that Oxygen was one of the largest expenses.

From Qld Country Life in April 2014:

>>The shed holds six tanks that each hold 19 cubic metres of water pumped from a nearby bore and then goes >>through the filtration system...

>>Each tank can take up to 1400 kilograms of barramundi.

When I was doing my BSc a few years ago, I visited a fish farm in Thora, Northern NSW, as part of the aquaculture unit I was studying. The owner was growing Silver Perch, and the waste from the ponds was being used to irrigate pasture for cattle. The paddocks were really lush and the cattle looked very healthy, but I got the impression from the visit, that there were so many restrictions on his operation, he wasn't exactly on easy street. He was very restricted on what he could actually do with that water. The main problems seemed to be, what would happen in the event of a flood as far as fish being washed into the Bellinger River and the nutrients doing the same. It's one thing having the nutrients pumped back into a closed aquaponics system, but a bit different when you have to consider the local waterways.

Did anyone else who saw the segment on Landline get the impression she was the one driving the Barra operation and he was like, whatever. He didn't seem that keen, regardless of how well it was doing.

in Tony's defense he has been a rather shy lad at school and as an adult he doesn't seem to have changed. The reality is that we would all love to have a wife as enthused about the family business ?

They actually spread their sludge as one would spread any manure over their paddocks and have already noticed an improvement in fodder growth.

wrt the mortality rate, when fish are being produced in such intensive systems one has to expect at least 10% losses. That's with silver perch or other similar species BUT not barramundi. these fish are more like cannibalistic pirrahna if such a species existed. every time one fish tries to eat another fish usually both fish die .... one chokes to death and the other suffocates. If they manage to separate, the fish being swallowed is left with unsaleable scarring to the head.

The big problem with the industry is the lack of direction with regard to demand feeding systems. Most commercial units are little more than toys and scheduled feeders do not take into account the barramundi's growing appetite to match their growth rate. the feed rate has to be adjusted almost daily, especially when there are 2000 to 3000 fish in a tank. Hence the need for "on demand" feeders. Such devices would help minimize the mortality rate after all catching a pellet is a lot easier and consumes a lot less energy than trying to swallow a cohort. Its all a matter of energy conservation and all animals including fish are experts at it.

There is also the notion among farmers that fish are dumb but in trials with fingerlings that I conducted in the early 90s it became obvious that fish could react to a change in feeding procedure within a day. After a fortnight I realized that they were following my footsteps around the dam and I could feed any time and any where. Later I realized that the fingerlings could distinguish between my footsteps and my wife's. They are a lot more intelligent than one would think ... try it sometime!

They can recognise faces too- my trout will come right over and eat from my hand, but they wont do that for anyone else. This same behaviour has been observed with several batches of trout.

yeh they're not bad are they. They also like rock&roll ... we keep radios playing in the shed so when someone different comes in the fish don't panic and jump out of the tank.

Just after I wrote the above I went out to feed them and was lowering a handful of feed towards the water when one came flying out and crashed into my hand... I guess it wanted to get the first pellet!

Hey Guys,

New to the forums and new to Aquaponics. Would really love to check out the news clip you are talking about, would you have a link or anything to it?

Bump for last post and welcome to the forum Jamieh

Have a look on ABC iView, it may be archived there, or else on abc.net.au, search for the program page, where they should have links to older programs