Affnan's Aquaponics - Fermented Tilapia After Two Weeks

It's done, but best after another week or two.

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Affnan's Aquaponics - Making Fermented Tilapia (Pekasam)

This is how I make pickled Tilapia or Pekasam in Malay, I had made a video on same topic few years back

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Fresh tilapia, remove the gut and salt it. Leave overnite or best 24 hours for salt to penetrate the flesh.

Tamarind and brown sugar mix to make the pickling  souce.

Tilapia covered by the tamarind sauce and sprinkle with burnt rice place in container to ferment for 2 weeks.

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Affnan's Aquaponics - Netting All Tilapia To Replace With Barb

Catching all Tilapia to replace with river barb  It has been more than 8 years I'm using tilapia in my aquaponics set.

It's about time to totally change to different fish.  Comparatively barb give more nutrient to plants than tilapia altho they eat much less.

I have 300 barb fingerling in the feeder tank, and will start to place them in the left return tank.

The smaller tilapia I will make pickle fish.

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Basic Aquaponics - Cuttings As Fish Feed

Sambung Nyawa plant cuttings can be use to feed Tilapia. Other than this they will eat Cassava or Tapioca leaves too.

Using cuttings from the Aquaponics will reduce dependency on fish feed and leaving decomposed vegetation in the fish tank will help in lowering ph if it is high.

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Catching Tilapia For Dinner

Picking few males from the tank. This tank where I put mostly males tilapia so that they did not breed uncontrollably. The females are in another part of my CRAFTS set.

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Fresh Tilapia Batch

Another batch bought from nearby nurseries fresh stocking, they are red tilapia fingerlings about 2" in length and I paid RM 20.00 (US $ 4.50) for a hundred.

As usual for any new fish going into the tank, let them float in the bag for 15 to 30 minutes, for the water temperature matching and then they can be let loose in the new place.

One hundred tilapia running around in the new surrounding, and will only feed them tomorrow after they stabilized.

Aquaponics Tips - Easiest Way To Catch A Tilapia

Just to share, not sure if anyone aware of this or not. Use a white colour net, they just swim into it... :)

Maybe Tilapia not intimidated by the colour white.

Short video on it.. :)

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Segregating The Fishes

In the CRAFT set, Tilapias and Jelawat with other fishes are mixed together. This obviously not good since some fish are aggressive and even among the Tilapias, the bigger fish will fight off the smaller ones for territorial right.

The fish has to be segregated and redistribute between the three tanks. 

Water in the tank that I need to catch the fish first is reduce by pumping it to another tank with the growbed filled up and preventing it from flushing.

Once water level has been reduce it will be easier to catch those Tilapias.

All the fishes are place in the center tank (Feeder tank) where the pump is located for later selection.

The bigger Tilapias is placed in the right return tank while the Jelawat and Patin in the left tank. The center tank will be for smaller juvenile tilapia.

While I am at it, why not scoop up few dirt, and and pebbles from the fish tank too since this is the best time to do it.

Transferring water from one tank to another ensures I do not waste any in the process of reducing the water level in the tanks that I want to catch the fish.

All in all it takes me an hour to do the tanks and transferring the fishes to regroup them.

It's Tilapia Time Again, This Time Deep Fried

This current batch of Tilapia a little slow to grow, maybe not enough feed. If it is fed too much then it will form more fat in the fish. So give it a lean diet to reduce this fat, fish in the wild don't get fed twice daily, they forage for food and eat what they find.

 Catch few Tilapia today and have it deep fried as a simple dinner.

Each of these are palm size and just nice for Malay cooking.

 It's easy to catch since my fish tank is only 4 feet in length and about 12 inches of water.

 Five Tilapia in the pail and next to get them clean and prepared.

 Fresh fish, once cleaned next step is to marinate them.

I use a simple old traditional way of marinating with salt, turmeric and a bit or tamarind to flavor the fish and get rid of the fishy smell.

  Let it stand for few minutes, like half an hour.

Deep fried the fish in oil until golden brown, it will give good aroma since the fish is fresh of the tank.

 While it's being fried, I prepare the final flavoring. Onion slice, Chili and some garlic these for the final fried together with the last piece. It doesn't matter with which, but I normally do it with the last fish.

 Last fish in..

 Those onion, chili and garlic (whole) ready for your turn.

 Turn over the fish, only then add the above to fried with the side needs cooking.

 Once fish cooked, remove it and switch off the flame and scoop up the garnishes to add on top of the cooked fish.

Walla.. it's ready.

Simple and fresh, take it with hot rice and some fresh vegetable salad.. it priceless.

They Are Always Hungry, These Tilapia

No matter how you feed them, they are always hungry. Tilapia has short digestive track they eat a little bit at a time but most of the time.

These are in my CRAFTS set, and they are getting bigger. I use fish pellets to feed them.

Never over feed fish, especially in Aquaponics. Water will get murky and Ammonia will shoot up. If you see foam or bubbles in the fish tank just stop feeding them for at least one day and continue after water had cleared.

It's okay for them to go hungry, they will start to feed on the algae making water and tank cleaner.

Surplus greens is good, above is the Sambung Nyawa plants that I cut and throw it to give them something to bite.

Tilapia will eat greens, one of the best is Kangkung these they will nibble in no time at all. However before feeding them greens make sure they are really hungry.

There are loads of green from my Aquaponics growbeds and it's fish food.

After 1 day in the fish tanks, this is what left of the plants. Those stems can still be use as cuttings.

Elusive Tilapia - Larvae Eliminator

One of my growbed on the back is using the potted flood and drain style of aquaponics setup. Having this kind of setup means there will be water surrounding the pots since they are standing in it. Where there is water there will be mosquito larvae.

Dengue fever is on an outbreak over here, and having standing water without fish is just a no go at this moment. So inside this growbed I have two small tilapia elusively hiding from view and they are task to ensure no mosquito larvae to be in their residence.

 Very difficult to spot but they are there doing their job silently.

Have to hide to get a better shot, before they disappear between those pots.

Once they get bigger I'll need to get fresh replacement for another couple of months. Water level will reduce to about one and a half inch during flushing, this size fish can do this water level.

So far, they had done a great job. No sign of any mosquito larvae.