8 months! 1lb! That's it and now I can focus on everything else

So, I did it. 
From start to finish, those fish grew and were harvested.  At just over 7 months they were about 1lb each.
The first batch were not terribly tasty - i'm going to try just letting them soak in an overpowering marinade and see if that makes them better.
The second batch smelled good at least - haven't gotten around to eating any yet.  Likely because of the higher quality pellet food I was giving them.
Man, though.  They have hard heads!  It was a tough job knocking them out, and then beheading.
I've got a few pics, including their teeth.  Pretty interesting stuff.  At the size they were, they became fairly docile as they were the last in the bucket.  Probably as a result of oxygen starvation.

So, improvements for next year
 : definitely get hydroponics attached.  It is way too hard to keep them alive in clean water without something taking the nitrogen out.
 : better heating system.  Very dangerous, precarious setup that ultimately failed in the last week and cost me a 300 watt heater.
 : better food.  A good part of their flavour is the crazy vegetation they eat - nuts, etc.  So, get some home made food into them.
Warning - Gruesome pics follow.

 Got a little excited and missed one of the measures

From the demonstration of our friends Dayna and Chad, so I'll remember how to clean a fish in the future

Learning by doing

Not a bad size

Check out those teeth!!!

Terrible news, everyone!

The science prof I had lined up to give me free credit just bailed, because he is too busy.  He also said that, for this to go forward, I would need an animal care certification, which takes about 4 months.

So, that's a setback.

I'll continue on. It'd be hard not to, with 17 voracious fish living in my basement.

Water change yesterday. There are at least 16 of them, but my count.
Algae growth is a bit of a concern, but I'm Not keen on introducing a pleco to that group.

They're here, they're a little creepy.

The pacu are in their baby tank!

Pacu being drip acclimated before transfer to tank

Okay, so that's not their actual final tank.  It's just a bucket, but still. 

On the, thankfully, waterproofesque scale

 We had to weigh each one individually, at which point I found out that my scale is not as exact as I would have liked.
The important thing, though, was that the scale was zero-able, so once the container was in place, I just had to dump a fish in there, and get the measurement.  

The tank as it is now, beautiful, before the learn that they are vegetarian

Of 17 that survived travel to Canada, Ich, and then travel to my home, 3 have noticeable injuries.  One of those appears to be significant, and may end up killing the fish.  It's an odd wound over it,s left eye that may have fungus now.  I'll keep an eye on the filter intake for the next while.

Everyone is eating voraciously, though, so that's good.

An auto-feeder has been placed to provide them with food every 6 hours from 8am to 8pm.  I'll up the amount of food that they are fed in a couple of weeks.

Notice the interesting spotting on the sides, and the lack
of a pronounced underbite, as opposed to piranha

They are rather creepy in their feeding.  They immediately began gnawing on snails shells.  I'm not sure if they were successful in their efforts but, if there are snails left in the tank, I don't see any anymore.

No deaths to report, 4 days in, which is a great thing, indeed.

Weights : four at 3 grams, five at 1 gram, and eight at 2 grams.

So, time to count the chickens.
Pacu have come in, they look healthy so far, and I'm getting excited about this again.

I'll be able to pick them up once I get back from a trip to the Sustainable Cities conference (London [Ontario.  Don't feel too happy for me]).

So, as soon as I land, I've got to get the tank nice again, which means cleaning a filter that is probably more than 50% blocked by now.  The flow rate was crap when I left, which means it'll be worse when I get back.

But, and somewhat more importantly, I'll take a picture of the tank.

See, the tank is beautiful.  The flow rate is lowish, which means the plants have flourished, snails are climbing the glass, the sand and rocks look great...

There is life everywhere.

Then I will introduce the "Omnivorous Piranha".  The plants will last MAYBE a week, I suspect.  Luckily, that also means the algae will likely be devoured.  The snails?  Can they stand up against a fish whose teeth are made for crushing the shells of nuts?

I am become death, etc etc.

The tricky part is going to be that I'll want to put them in  the tank toute suite, but I've got to remember to weigh them first.

Anyhow, nice to have a positive update.  I hope it is the first of many.

Edit: I can pick them up at the end of the week, and they're still healthy so far (on Monday).
Squee.

Still no fish... The tank is lonely.

So, funny thing about this is how much people are behind the idea.  Over the holidays two gentlefolk have passed my name on to others so that we can talk about aquaponics efforts in the city.  Who knew?

The fish are still not around.  It was a 100% die off at the fish store.  He kept saying "it was my fault, I didn't think they were that fragile".  I did not disagree.

At any rate, we may switch from Pacu to Oscars, which is funny, because the full-grown Oscars may be worth more per pound as pets than as food.

TOO BAD FOR THEM THAT THAT ISN'T SCIENCE.

The bad news begins...

So, the fish were too sick to sell to me.  That's a shame.  I saw them, and I totally agree.  They were pretty effing sick with ick.

My supplier will be getting more "In January", which may or may not be so, we'll see. 

But, positive news, I have spoken with a prof at the University of Winnipeg, and may be able to turn this into a for-credit project!

This is, however, essentially a non-update.

And so it begins - The tank is ready, the fish are in Winnipeg, what could go wrong?

Hello.

I am about to begin an experiment in aquaponics in Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

This will involve Pacu.

Pacu are a fish that live in the Amazon river.  They like water to be about 27C.

Winnipeg has an average summer temperature of 23ishC (May - September).

It's currently December.

I aim to start the fish now, grow them until May, put them outside in an IBC, and harvest September/October.  In order to lower energy costs I'll be making a solar water heater to warm water before the electric heater kicks in.  I've also got to build a greenhouse for the plants that will be filtering the water.

What could go wrong?  I'm sure to keep this blog going until the project is done, right?