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This most beautiful of places just a minutes drive from the town of Camperdown and ten minutes from Cobden has been lost to users for the summer and the reason blue-green algae , why because of the inaction of the people tasked with looking after the lake , there are answers to the problem but because of a bureaucratic boondoggle which never seems to end things remain undone, it’s not rocket science , stop the manure going in and take the nutrient out.

Ten of thousands of dollars lost to the economies of both towns, bait shops , fuel ,accommodation, food etc.

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Not good enough !

The videos below show the last of my four ponds, as I said pond four holds 24 blackfish that were bred here on the farm , they are three years old this Christmas and I am hoping they will breed, if they do it will prove that these fish can breed at this age ,that is important knowledge for the future of these fish, next we can work on how to tell the sexes apart.

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This is a quick update on my search for eggs in a two thousand litre aquaculture tank, and it does not look good where I expected eggs I found a Yabby maybe next year I will swap fish and try again.

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I have two blackfish in a tank with a aquaponics system and I am hoping that they will breed, there are no eggs yet but  I will keep and eye on them.

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My little Deadong 30 hp tractor finally gave up the ghost after working so hard during the fires, she scraped, lifted, dragged, pushed and she must have breathed in smoke ash and pine cones along with a fair amount of dust, after she dug trenches for new pipes slashed grass picked up rocks so it’s of to the doctors to try to put her back together .

The fire burnt right over the tractor melting the floor mat and the side of the gear lever and it could have upset the electronics as well , a tree branch flung back and smashed the lights and put a dent in the side , so she is well and truly deserves a good going over even the wheel hubs look like they got burnt.

UPDATE: The search for the cannon did not go to plan , the drive down was four-wheel drive only and a little steep once at the bottom the lake is surrounded by quick sand so very hard to get close to, then the under water drone wouldn’t dive in lower speeds because of the high salt content so I decided to fly the aerial drone and the battery was dead and last but not least I tried to take the salinity of the water and my metre wouldn’t work.

I have a new battery for the aerial drone and more weights coming for the under water drone when they arrive I will try again.  

Tomorrow we start the search for the long-lost world war one cannon that was taken from the main street of Camperdown Victoria in the early seventies , it is said it was dumped in a lake near the town the problem with that is there are hundreds of lakes near Camperdown it’s called the lakes and craters shire  because of the Volcanic nature of the area, some of the lakes  are quite deep 40 plus metres so the task is huge , After much research we have narrowed the search down to a relatively  small area and that’s where we shall begin tomorrow.All the evidence is hearsay so it is a bit hit and miss , however I am confident that the  under water drone will find it if it’s there, it could have sunk into the silt on the bottom of the lake or it could be very deep , depth should not be a concern in the search because the drone can dive to a depth of one hundred metres, if it is deep the problem will retrieving it.

Once we find the cannon there are organizations that will retrieve the cannon and begin the restoration process, so in the centenary year of the first world war it can once again be proudly displayed in the main street of Camperdown.

After I took these videos I ran a fine net through the water for ten seconds in and around weeds and rocks I caught one shrimp and four copepods, nowhere near enough to support hundreds of young fish.

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This pond is where all my young fish  have come from, I have kept 23 on site they are in pond no 4 and are nearly 3 years old and hopefully will breed , (these fish were impacted by the fires and their fate is unknown.)

Pond no 1 is holding fifteen fish of varying sizes all came from a dam on private property, some are old enough to breed here’s hoping .

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I Wound like to show you around the fish farm, in the next few days and will start with pond 3.

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