The last 24 hours have been rather hectic. Starting on Friday night, and through to this evening we've harvested both fry ponds, and are preparing for selections tomorrow. I also pick axed a channel for the bottom drain on a new tank for the polytunnel that will be for growing on the fry.
I'll write it up with more detail over the next week or so, but here are some pictures that tell the story
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| Sewing a frame to the top of this cage net to create a floating isolation net |
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| Draining down "Horseshoe Pond" - very few outlying puddles. The Shiro fry gather in the water collection point. Unfortunately I had a poor yield - as I suspected, either/or oxygen depletion / gas bubble disease from the first few days after the fry went in where the pond was thick green soup. It's a lesson. |
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| Pumping out from "Chestnut" pond, with this planting basket to protect the fry from the pump. |
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| "Chestnut" pond didnt drain down to one point quite as well as "Horseshoe" pond, and these outlying puddles were teeming with kohaku |
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| We started harvesting at 7pm, and we called in some friends to help. There was too much to do, and not enough time! Kitchen implements came in handy! |
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| The red "clouds" are daphnia. |
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| The end result! The kohaku spawning didnt go well, and it was a difficult decision to give the few hatchlings a whole fry pond - but the fry pond stage seems to have gone well, and the yield seems high compared to the number of hatchlings that went in. |
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| No rest for us this evening. Amanda is making some small spoon sized nets for the fry selections tomorrow. |
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| Hey presto! I'll tie them onto some sticks tomorrow to finish them off. |
