Been a quiet period. Started with 8 crays. We discovered 5 were male and three female. Bad planning !
We've added an automatic fish feeder which seems to preform OK. Simple battery operated thing. Very basic but does the job feeding them twice daily. Just seems to be like the air pump, keeps on working. Great for when we are away for a few days.
Anyway we've lost the 3 females. They jumped out of the tanks. Happened during a couple of really heavy rains. Not sure why this is, possibly a coincidence. Will need to cover the tanks with some netting to avoid this happening again. As for the loss we decided to replace them in next few weeks.
They a few days back, in fact two Saturdays ago we lost a male one as well. Again why we do not know. But Wanna found the little fella on the ground outside the front of the house. Would seem he jumped the tank and went with the rain water across our flat roof and out the over flow pipe. Very sad. Now down to 50% or if you prefer, 4 male crays.
But and its an amazing but ..! We went to eat breakfast last Saturday in a local restaurant, one we use quite often, and the adjacent shop sells live "Koi" fish. We always stop to look at these. Lovely colours etc. But this time we notices the tank also contained Crays. Great excitement we asked where they got them as we needed some female ones. Owner told us her husband breeds them on the first floor. And on the second floor is where he breeds the KOI. Big excitement as we have arranged to go back and see his set up next week. And of course get some female Crays.
Another thing happened to us also on the Saturday. In the evening we went to watch the rugby and as one does we got talking to a guy sitting near us. One thing led to another and we talked about why we were in Rayong etc. He responded "I build, install and run Aquaponics systems". He explained how he had been travelling the world installing "fodder" factories and various fish farms and more recently Aquaponics systems. So watch this space.