Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just re-visiting this post. Has anyone found a successful method yet? With the price of trout what they are these days (and the fact that I am now a full-time student with zero income), I'm looking at alternatives for my system. I like the fact that yabbies eat vegetative matter including cow pats...

you wont get the nutrient (nitrate) load from yabbies. As all previous posts have noted you can have a few but not enough for a sustainable food stock. The only real option is to segregate your tank/s in some way.
In terms of numbers, even with a larger tank and PVC etc you rarely end up with many left.

don't think the cow pads would be that great - maybe but they would add ammonia to system.
However yabbies will eat most things, chook pellets are pretty cheap.

it is possible to raise them in small cages and "vertical condos" but that is pretty much like battery hens...


on the flip side having a couple of yabbies or similar in a tank is good for getting excess fish food and tank bottom stuff etc eaten. And if you provide enough hides you should be able to carry enough to have breeding. A cycle of getting rid of the dominant one helps as the survivors tend to become used to hiding most of the time. Plants are good and babies will hide in amongst them and also climb up high (eg. valisneria). Smaller yabbies prefer clay bricks to PVC pipes and it is not unusual initially to have a heap of juveniles living side by side in the holes. Issues start when the begin competing for food.

Thanks Diff_perth its an awful shame. Maybe I'll just put some in the dam. I've heard rumours that because they burrow into the clay wall, it can cause dam leaks, can you comment on that?

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>> Maybe I'll just put some in the dam. I've heard rumours that because they burrow into the clay wall, it can cause dam leaks, can you comment on that?

Dams are generally fine. The only issue would be where the dam has a very thin clay liner.
If the dam is constructed in clay and properly compacted it is fine.

Yabbies will go well in the dam provided water parameters are reasonable.

If you want to find out more about yabbies grab one of the books by Robert McCormack.