Aquaponics Silver perch feast

I cant remember if I even mentioned this because I was probably in some kind of deranged pain killer broken rib induced state when it happened, but I may have forgotten to mention I ate one of my big silver perch.

It looked like this.

The South Australian Fisheries people suggest the most humane way (and best way to protect its eating qualities) to dispatch a fish is to plunge it into an ice water slurry, and leave it there.

A few hours later I scaled and cleaned it, and lightly salted it inside and out.




I wrapped it in whatever you call thin plastic kitchen wrap where you live, and left it in the fridge for twelve hours, then cooked it whole.

It was one of the nicest fish I have ever eaten.

Crazy fat.

You cant really tell from this angle, but it was in very fat condition. Looking down from the top, it had that thick section just before its tail like a dolphin.

Most wild caught fish dont seem to have that.

Im guessing its because life is a little tougher in the wild when you dont have an unlimited amount of feed available.

Anyway...

This fish was in very good condition and had excellent fat content.

Apparently silver perch fat is high in Omega 3, but it was mostly delicious.

It weighed 1.08kg gutted and scaled and was 33 cm long.

I wish I had built a much bigger system ages ago so I could have a lot more.

Successfully farming your own protein in only a couple of cubic meters or space is an amazing thing to be able to do in suburbia.

I totally recommend it.



120 Things in 20 years totally recommends it.

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Aquaponics Silver Perch

Its been a while since I paid any attention to my Aquaponics system, but it was nice to find my Silver Perch have been busy growing.

I wandered out to the Aquaponics system for the first time in ages because it was making a slightly different sound, and it turned out to be a partial blockage of the pipe work.

Blocked with tomato roots.

Ive been expecting some problems because when I pruned back the four tomato plants that are still growing from last year, I accidentally killed one by snapping it off at the base. The roots are all meshed together with its three tomato plant buddies, so there was no way to get them out. I figured it would work its way out in the end. It probably would have. The system was still working, with some water going through my overflow. The overflow exits from the surface of the fish tank water, where in normal operation, the water exits from the bottom via a solids lifting overflow. As a result its unlikely that both would be blocked at the same time.

Anyway, everything seems to be ticking along nicely.

I dont really know how big this fish is (Id guess around 40+cm), but its in really good condition. Theyre not just long, but really heavy as well. Heavy looking that is. I wouldnt like to try to catch one, I think it would be a little disruptive.

Im not sure if this is the bigger of the two, but one of them now looks like this...

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Aquaponics Silver perch eat Kale

I grew some kale that turned out to made of leather and task a bit like canvas.

But it turns out my single, enormous silver perch eats it.

Even in winter where the water tends to be too cold for silvers to be interested in anything except worms.

You learn something new every few months.

I have some health stuff to deal with, and then Ill start some kind of exciting new thing.

I promise.

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Electronics Aquaponics Demand feeder hits

It turns out the fish have been hitting the lever, but the switch hasnt been working.

It should be an easy fix, but for the time being, this will have to do.

[edit from the future - I fixed the switch and got a few proper hits with feed delivered within a few hours]

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Aquaponics Silver Perch update

I recently ran out of fish feed, so Ive been hand feeding them worms, and what ever they call fly larvae in whatever part of the world you live.  They are called "gents" here when bought as bait, or stored in a fridge shared with people who dont want maggots in their fridge. "Maggots" when found in smelly stuff.

The point is, as a result of feeding them live food like worms, gents, and caterpillars, they are venturing a bit further up the water column to the point where they are now easy to photograph.

This guy is pretty big.

And heavy looking.

It looks like this up close.

I have no idea how big or how heavy it is, but Ill try to get a photo next to a ruler.

I wont try to weigh it because I cant think of a way to do it without stressing it.

Ill weigh it if I ever eat it.



120 Things in 20 years - Sometimes your aquaponics silver perch get quite big when youre not looking.

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Thinking Old peoples hands

I got old peoples hands yesterday.

Ive never had old peoples hands before.


Wear Levis, pick guitars and go riding on trucks.


Ill be right back in just a sec...

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Thinking Moons

According to my blogs stats for today, Ive had a few hits from the moon, and also from Jupiters moon Europa.

Which is nice.

They even clicked on a few adds and earned me a few Earth cents.

Which is also nice.

Thanks for the support moon people.




120 Things in 20 years thinks it might be April 1st.

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Electronics Infinite battery life camera

Ive had to make a few compromises with version 2.0 of the demand feeder.

One is that Ive re-written the code and made it a lot more simple than it was originally. Ive still got the old code, and Ill use it and post it when I make it a little better, but the full version resets each day at dawn as one of the overfeeding protection measures. I only have two silver perch in a 100L fish tank, with 300L of filtration media, so they can have as much feed as they like. To encourage the pressing of the button, Ive made it so that they only get a small amount of feed each time, but they have the opportunity of more feed after only eight minutes since the last feed. The point of making a simpler version of the software was so that it would keep a running total of all events like the number of times the fish have hit the feed lever when the light is lit, and the number of times when the light isnt lit.

The fish pressed the lever only once in the 24 hours since I added it to the system. This may have just been a tail swipe, but it would have delivered feed, so some reinforcement of the behaviour of getting at least near the lever has begun!

It wont take them long to get the hang of it.

I ran the camera until the batteries were dead last night, but the hit must have happened some time since dawn while the camera was on charge. To solve this two hour filming limit, I created this.

Its a camera taped to its battery charger, that is in turn taped to a tripod.

I plugged it into the earth leakage safety switch that the rest of the system is plugged into.



It blends in a bit with the actual feeder, but thats the feeder with the birds nest of wires sticking out of the back of it. The orange looking light under the camera is the LED that tells the fish feed is currently available. The red light at the top is the power on LED, and the yellow one is flashing out the number of feeds allowed in a day (even though the thing no longer resets after a day, so really it shows the number of feeds allowed ever). There are also LEDs that flash out the number of feeds so far, the feeds remaining, the number of attempts made at the lever when food isnt available. That is when the feed LED isnt lit, because they just fed recently. And one more that flashes out the size of each feed thats delivered. The size is measured by how long the motor is on for, and doesnt actually represent the amount of feed, but on average, should spill a predictable amount each time. Currently, they would get around 5-8, 3mm pellets each time they hit the lever.

Hopefully, Ill have some video soon.



120 Things in 20 years - Electronics - Infinite battery life camera - This project is far from finished.

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