Great pics, Dr cam. I should do some research, but are they all SW?
WARNING: VAST DRIVEL FOLLOWS.
With regard to the endemic Victorian species, you're on the money. I'm familiar with all of them. These are the only fish I have any knowledge of, since my interest is in creating a local biotope before all these fish disappear. The massive river system of Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin, is almost dead.
The Maccullochella peelii peelii (Murray cod) which is the top predator, is what I'm growing in my aquaponics trials (90). The idea is to put in train a food cycle, where no outside sourced pelletised foods are required.
It's very involved, but that's the task I've set myself and if it is feasible, I'll have, perhaps, the first organic fish farm. It's worth the journey.
All the organisms within the system, apart from the cod themselves, are derived from organic, biodynamic or quarantine lab sources. Algae, copepods, rotifers, daphnia, worms, cockroaches, etc. The shrimp are fish food, as are the pacific blue eyes and perhaps the yabbies and goldfish.
The trial's housed in the 20'x40' workshop shown on my profile albums, where Sophie was site manager. Solar HW will, I hope, warm the aquaspace, which will be enclosed in coolroom insulation. I found it almost impossible to keep small insects and small vessels of water warm this past winter and part of the ethos is to reduce the carbon footprint as much as is possible.
There are no water changes. A pond pump, which will be solar later (this is just my trial), takes water up from the 2300L cod tank, and into an 18" deep 3/4" aggregate vessel which is the bio filter. Nitrosomonas, nitobacter, nitrospira are doing their work, and parameters are constantly fine. pH 7'2. Our little town has a bore, and the calcium and magnesium offer a good buffer.
Enroute to the biofilter, water sprays into each of the shrimp tanks. The water levels are maintained by a tube under each tank' substrate, which rises and exits each tank, releasing the outflow back into the fishtank. So, not all the water that's pumped travels through the biofilter, but the system is in balance, and as the fish grow and the bioload increases, the growbeds (vegetables in aggregate), which will be in a poly tunnel outside, are added to extend the nutrient absorbtion system.
Feeding worms to fish is labour intensive, but there's no waste to produce ammonia, since the worms live for days under water. So, if there are too many worms, they're eaten the following day. When the worms go in, there is invariably some vermicompost that goes in too. I've worked with aerobic composting for years, and am comfortable that it is only pure vermicompost in the system. Another buffer is offered by the endemic freshwater mussels in the shrimp tanks and the fish tank.
Anyway, cam, sorry, mate I zoned out there talking rot. That's my little intro to my long and winding road to getting a Murray River biotope tank.....eventually. I've got to set up a business first. Even the old truck in my album will play its advertising part.
The Gobies, smelts, local rainbow, pygmy perch, etc are too big for the little shrimp tanks. 10cm is 4".
Also, they're very, very difficult to get and I'd want to breed them, and most of the species you suggest require access to brackish or estuarine environments when juvenile. All too technical and resource intensive for me at this time. When you get here, we can see what meagre resources we can allocate to investigating things further.
Freshwater aquaculture has great potential to supply a sought after food source. The market is massive and can be supplied in a socially, environmentally and financially sustainable way. Murray cod have very high omega three, taste good, white meat, cope with variable water parameters, survive wide seasonal temp variations.
Marine aquaculture is polluting, both visually and ecologically, expensive and monoculture. Freshwater aqua-polyculture overcomes a lot of these hurdles. Even better, aqua-polyponics, reduces water use to a minimum and cycles through vegetable beds to extract nitrates.
Blah, blah, bl<>dy blah!.
Sorry. I'm embarressed now.
The way I see it cake is good anytime!:thm:
