Aquaponics - Yabby stocking density

I've been thinking about stocking density, and it isn't even close to the holiday season.

I've had a clutch of baby yabbies (freshwater crayfish like things) drop from their mother, and for the last week or two I've been watching their behaviour through the glass of their small aquarium.

They spend most of their time running the boundary and bumping into each other for a quick fight, then moving on.

The result of all this watching is that I've had an idea.

The popular numbers I hear for yabby stocking density are that you need one square metre of lake per adult yabby if you want to farm them to eat (and have them grow to a decent size), but I think that might not necessarily be the case. I think that perhaps you need a linear distance of boundary per yabby rather than an area.

I have a feeling that in a lake, the yabbies might also run the boundary, bump into each other, and fight for a bit before moving on. This would mean that a large normal shaped lake might hold less yabbies than a long thin lake that took up the same area. I'm trying to stop them fighting and to give them the illusion of having a decent patch of lake to call their own, so maybe, the longer the boundary, the more yabbies you can keep.

Maybe.

If this turns out to be true, a long thin lake with a series of baffles might prove to be the better bet.

Or not.

Who knows.








If it works I hope it makes a stack of yabby farmers a stack of money, or helps someone who depends on their yabby farm to eat eat a bit more, or perhaps it could help someone like me to grow some yabbies in their aquaponics system.

Who knows.



120 things in 20 years doesn't know.