Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After many trials and tribulations I appear to have finally master the art of raising fish. I have approximately 140-150 tandanus tandanus (plus maybe 10 silver perch) which are around a year old (8 + inches) and they're doing really well. I'm also getting some vegies etc out of my system.

Now for the problem. Simply put after all this effort I'm not that keen to kill and eat them when they get bigger. I enjoy raising the fish, pottering about with the system etc;but....

So at this point I really have two choices :

1) sell the lot to someone else
2) find a way to make some money out of raising fish to justify my hobby

Since the system is made up of 2 x 2000 litre aquaculture tanks + 4 growbeds full of hand washed gravel, a large sump dug by hand and a number of large volume pumps + a greenhouse I could probably scale up the number of fish; but I really need to justify the past and ongoing expense and effort to myself (and my partner)


If anyone has any ideas they'd be appreciated.

Thanks

Switch to raising ornamentals, you can get far more money when you sell them. I am about to help a friend switch his conventional ornamental aquariums to AP. He gets massive ammounts of money for one fish.

I wish I were closer, and I would take some off your hands

I feel exactly the same way Mantis !

Sorry I can't help you there eame0002. Ronmaggi's advise is good though - there's good money in ornamentals, though you'll possibly have to put in more time/effort depending on what species you go with.

Been thinking of trying to breed bristle nose cats in my 200L aquarium in the shed, and selling them eventually. Tank is sitting there running but empty at the moment
Would really like to breed clown loaches but apparently they wont breed in captivity

Then that is where the money is !!!!

Been looking for some tandanus locally for a while now, and that's probably as local as i'm gonna get, so as a small contribution towards option 2, I'll PM you..

when ever i breed fish or aquarium plants i found it best not to expect to make money but use them to cover cost a little bit and would just take a few in when ever i need feed or something but that was back befor i knew of AP and was paying around $100 a kg for feed and stupid amounts for filters that are no way close to as good as a growbed if i was able to get back wat i spent on AQ and spend it on AP...
why didnt anyone tell me about AP!

any way i want some tandanus and im sure many others will to

I agree that ornamentals might be the way to go.
I would also take a few tan tans off your hands if you decide to get rid of them.

Looks like you have a couple of takers then

Hey KE, from your experience can we have the rainbows and the tan tans together in the same pond. If so we could probably take a couple of the tans for you.

I dont think trout would mix well with any other fish, and your only choice would be a divider in your tank, like Charlie has done to separate his silvers and trout. A simple pvc frame and some plastic mesh.

yea I wouldnt put trout with anything for the simple reason they are aggressive and hungry, if they dont eat them there is still the chance they will chase/bite/stress other species. A patition or sump tank/seperate tank is a failsafe approach.

p.s. I like the goldring loach..

The first fish that I put into my system were about 6 tandanus and 12 silver perch from one of Monya's early purchases. The next year I threw in about 50 trout. The original fish hadn't grown much but they were big enough that the trout didn't eat them. I had them for about 2 years before a power failure killed them. They didn't grow anywhere big enough to eat. I'm not sure if it was because I was just inexperienced, gave them the wrong food at the wrong time (I've heard they feed better at night but I was feeding during the day), or perhaps it was because my system is set up for colder temps (being mostly in the shade) and perhaps it was too cold for most of the year - great for trout though.
The short answer is yes they can live together, as long as they are around about the same size. If Richard's fish are 8 inches then they are much bigger than the trout that I currently have, so there'll be no problems.
As much as I love the trout I would really like a bit of variety.