Fish food

[Jim Bedford]

Hi All,
Joined today. Very interesting. Wondering about the laws with regard to feeding fish for human consumption at home? Has anyone used baby mice for Sthn species? Also, does anyone have an evap/transpiration water loss figure for a fully operational system? Obviously this would have to be re /m veg. Finally, anyone working with hardwater?
PS I'm sure I've broken a hundred rules by lodging multiple questions. My only defense is that I'm thrilled to have found the forum and am a computer novice.
Cheers, Jim

[Murray]

Hi Jim,
Welcome
There are no laws that I know of re what you feed your fish, except the ones you set yourself. Most folk are very fussy about what the fish get to eat because the fish are themselves to be eaten by the feeder.
Re Transpiration, So many factors come into play, how hot is the day, lat and long, relative humidity, greenhouse or no greenhouse, plant type, do you flood the beds above the surface of the gravel and so on.
In my 4 bed system with it's 2300 ltr fish tank I top up 30 to 70 ltrs a day in high summer and 20 to 30 in winter. Water use is the absolute minimum possible in any gardening system.
In a well managed system, the only water loss is via transpiration and water that is used to produce the vegetable. If you pick 2 kg of tomatoes I would guess there is at least one kg of water (one ltr) in the tomatoes picked.
Lettuce are mostly water.

[Jim Bedford]

Thanks Murray,
My transpiration rates will be similar to, or fractionally higher than up your way. I'm an hour west of our member at Shepparton, and 45 mins south of where another member mentioned managing a Yabbie operation at Moama (Echuca). I've had a 6.1m x 6.2m workshop built. Concrete floor, 15amp power outlets, hi-bay lighting, windows, 3m walls and roller doors and phone/computer cabling.
Hadn't built it specifically for aquaponics/integrated food production, but am thinking that I could dedicate half the shed to fish/yabbie culture and have the grow beds immediately outside, which is where I have my thirteen fruit trees, chooks, tank water and mains (bore) water.
Interesting to read about duckweed. Is this azolla? I'm thinking of using azolla, water chestnuts and phragmites as part of a bio filter between the grow beds and the aqua tanks. Any thoughts?
Also, has anyone used a passive pool heater down this way?
Cheers Jim
PS Man, those quail look tasty!

[fishfood]

Hi jim welcome to ap madness the only advice will give is if possable look at a few opperating systems and ask a lot of questians[ its fum doing it again but expencive on used parts][ note shift pistd is the way to go] have a look at my thread [look mum its all done with one pump]

[Murray]

Jim, Your setup will be really fantastic. To have those facilities available to you will be wonderful. Fish tanks in the shed and the grow beds outside under a grow tunnel or similar is ideal.

[GaryD]

Hi Jim,

Interesting to read about duckweed. Is this azolla?

No duckweed is not Azolla. Both are aquatic plants but duckweed is quite different to Azolla in terms of its physical appearance and the way that it functions.

There is already a thread on duckweed and googling 'duckweed' will produce plenty of useful reading/

GaryD

[Jim Bedford]

Thanks Murray, Gary and Fishfood. Sorry Fishfood, but I'm not sure what[note shift pistd is the way to go] means. I'm techno lingo challenged. If there are forum protocols I'm ignoring, please let me know.
If our Shepparton member is on-line, maybe they'd be good enough to fill me in on where they looked for their system and how they're getting on with the Euroa (or other) hatchery...?
Do fingerlings weaned onto pellets readily go to live food as they grow?
Cheers Jim

[fishfood]

Savage goldfish [shepparton] hasent got a setup running yet [well dident 6 weeks ago] if thats who you are talking about
as for the euroa hatchery they only sell eels commercial
for shft pst see my thread fishfood in established systems
i allways recomend start cycling with goldfish [normaly the cheapest option ][i still have 3 large ones ]

[Jim Bedford]

Thanks Fishfood,
I've done as you recommend and started out with goldies. I bought a dozen 20mm comets from the pet shop in Bendigo and they've breed to now number about 40 of varying sizes and colours. Breeding well and all look perfect except for the raised 'moles' on a couple of the larger ones. I've been reading about ich on-line and believe it is something which our aquaponics species can contract. I'll be keen to see how the recommended 14 days in 3kg/1000L goes in clearing this up. Is it a parasite which humans can suffer from?
Interestingly though, mine don't exhibit any of the other symptoms of ich, as I've said, they look great. I'm wondering whether they have fibrosis. They're in a poly-lined yard pond which holds about 2m3 of water and has reeds, lilies, papyrus, etc. I never feed the fish, they look perfect and the water is crystal clear, although I'll have to start testing. Also, in my earlier remark I said my workshop was 6.1m x 6.2m. That's the area I can dedicate to the fish/yabby culture. The workshop is actually 6.1m x 12.2m. I'm thinking of starting with three small tanks, 1200mm long. Down the track they'll be used for staged introduction of fingerlings, but in the immediate term I thought I'd try yabbies and duckweed. I'll match the grow bed system to this as well as I'm able and increase it in time as, when the yabbies are harvested, I introduce fingerlings to the small tanks and prepare a couple of the 2400mm tanks.
Thanks for your advice. Great to have access to you folk who know your stuff.
Cheers Jim

[fishfood]

Jim without photos i would say the raised moles are not ich if there are only on 1or2 i would cull them for salting use a quarantine tank salt may effect your native plants i only have veggies in my system and they dont mind salt