Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hey all,

we after a long hot and sunburned day i have arrived home with 100 less barra then i set out to acquire. when i get to a friends place we find 300 odd fish all on their sides near dead. f'ing portable air pump went and stopped working on me. in panic mode the crew realized this was a life and death situation. we may have got to most them just in time but boy they were stressed big time. 10 or so were dead on the bottom. i was forced to leave my fish in their system or risk further deaths. i opted for the former.

when netting out the fish the net broke in 2 places. fish were getting caught in the net and being choked by it. 8( . i had to hold the holes closed while my friend scooped the fish, as we were running out of time. somehow we got most into the tank before to many more died. a poor bugger got caught in the drainage hole and i still haven't managed to get it out.

a huge learning curve if nothing else. not sure how the fish are now but hoping for the best.

if the airpump hadn't stopped and the net broken it would have been a fantastic day though so i can't complain.

i'm absolutely stoked with what the supplier gave us. you should check them out if they survive. some real whoppers in there. was more like 15-30cm. you know who i'll be recommending all my friends visit. this guy's a class act. i'll be working with him on a few things so if anyone needs anything let me know. i'll make it happen for you.

funny how this expirience differs to veggieboys.

gosh

Don't let the minuses distract from what otherwise seems a pretty positive outcome and experience BF.....

And thanks for sharing your experience, it'll help others to check and double check their gear and to consider having a "Plan B"...

Nice to see you were able to be nimble onya feet mate

at least there are positives, looking forward to your progress and pics.

good luck bf

Yep - all my problems were related to the fish farm

PS - sounds like commedy capers. I could nearly hear slapstick music as I read your post. Glad to hear that the fish seemed to fair okay in the end. You have certainly done well to get the size you did. The bloke would have to be making a loss on them when you factor in what it would have cost to raise them to date. It will be months before mine are that sort of size and they will go through heaps of food in the meantime.

Having said that - there will be a certain amount of satisfaction from having raised them from 20-30mm to eating size.

i can add some bennyhill music for you

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

well as it turns out all but 6 small ones made it through. the supplier must have thrown in an extra ten so we're up on numbers atm. then there are the sizes which are huge (only problem is they may be to large and eat the smaller ones). i'm pretty damn stoked about that considering. as it turns out it was a good day after all. goes to show how tough the larger ones are. at least 2 of them looked as good as dead but pulled through. very lucky at the end of the day. i would expect to see some pics around the forum soon.

Any idea how much the bigger ones would weigh BF?

wouldn't have a clew but they are easily big enough to eat. if any larger ones didn't make it they would have made a nice dinner.

One good thing about the barra is that it is not unusual to have a meal of baby barra. If I end up growing them as a regular thing, I'll be certainly harvesting at various sizes if it turns out to be most convenient to do so.

wt?

yeah I have kind of had this thought about why wait till they grow to plate size just have two of them, yes I know that they willnot have equal amounts of meat on them but if you have 100 fish and you can only support 100 at full plate size, why not when they are 15 - 20 cms long just eat them. That is my plan once I get the latest lot going.