Aquaponics

[JToombsy]

yeah but we'll forgive him for that... not his fault he wasnt as fortunate as us!
yeah im thinking thats the solution but it gets colder here than it gets hot.

[Saratoga]

Thats a bugga mate.... to be honest, it is so late in the season I wouldnt add any fish till spring. You can add Seasol to keep the veggies happy until fish arrive.
Ive left a tank empty exactly for the same reason, I want Jades in that tank but is too cold for them now, my water temp is down to 16 with heaps of insulation on the tanks.
You do not want to be paying $$ to heat an outside tank mate, believe me !
I would either go for Silver Perch or Murray Cod, both will tolerate the extremes... provided the are well settled in prior.
Cod can be problematic due to their cannibalistic & agro nature, they need to be crowded in to prevent predation, same as barra. The down side is you need a solid & stable system with high water quality, good filtration & aeration is imo essential.
Im off for 10 days in the morning, to inspect that AP facility, then to complete my PDC on an organic permaculture property 90mins west of Lismore.

[Saratoga]

Also... anything that is sold by hatcheries now are last seasons runts. I would avoid them as you will not get good growth when it warms.

[JToombsy]

cool thanks mate thats some handy info. he was going to insulate the ponds and he has already been adding seasol daily. he was thinking of adding silver perch but was told that it would be two years before he could harvest them. poor bugger paid $3 each for a total of $150 down the... auto-syphon

are you seriously thinking about taking over the pilot facility? if so good luck to ya man. its a fantastic opportunity and im suer you would be suited to the work!

[Saratoga]

Yeah JT, it can be 2 yrs for silvers, these were 15 months old from 5cm fingerlings.
When the new season fingerlings are avail they should be about $1.40
The pilot facility had been decommissioned and was in a forgotten state. The hydro grow tubes had been replaced with earth grow beds & had been completely planted in thyme of all bloody things. The fish side of things had also been raided with all the expensive equipment & filters removed. It was a rather sad inspection, I could see the potential that was evident in the video... I could also see it would take $50-60k to get it back to full production. I made an offer to buy the remaining components.

[JToombsy]

too bad, it was quite the spectacular facility in the video, not something i would just put to the side and forget about.
i take it they would want you to fund the rehabilitation of the facility?

[JToombsy]

hey toga just a quick question mate, my friend alan is having problems with fish leeches at the moment and was wondering if there was any way to kill the leeches without having to drain the tanks and wait 30 days for their life cycle to end? he doest have anywhere to segregate the fish atm and was hoping that you, the magnificent aquaponics guru you are might have a simple solution to his problem.
anyways any help would be muchly appreciated!

[Saratoga]

Hmmm, leeches are very rarely a problem for fish... gotta pic??
If indeed are leeches you can add 500gms of salt (uniodised) into 1000 ltrs of growing water.

Im thinking they might have anchor worm... if you are seeing little things hanging off the fish.
Only way to rid of these is to manually remove each with tweezers ensuring you get the head which is burried into the body of the fish.

[JToombsy]

will removing all of the worms from the fish end the worms life cycle? or do they lay eggs in the water also?

[Saratoga]

Usually a once of removal of all worms will see the end of it, but they can be very small and easily missed if rushing through the exercise.
Yes, they do lay eggs in the water in the last stage of free swiming larvae, before they require a host... adding the same amount of salt should knock the lavae on the head.
Have your mate google anchor worm pics & info to see what im talking about.