Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That is a great shot Marc. They sure can be difficult to get a shot of. I have found that mine is getting used to the spot light and isnt so skittish now, but it used to be.

You glass looks great to me. If you want to see bad glass check out my latest photos.

Great looking trout there mate. You must be happy.

Hi Ryan, I see what you mean
It's hard keeping the glass clean with all that water getting splashed about especially at feeding time

I had the glass off one of the tanks and the cat decided to jump up and went straight in Now I have really dirty glass.

The fish was great eating and the "war office" is very happy

From the trout brag thread

Had another whip around the tank and came up with this one. Its 150gms heavier than the last one and still not the biggest.





After the disparaging remarks about my obese trout I had a closer look at the guts and found that are very fatty. It was just like the adds we have here in the West warning that the fat around your vital organs is a health issue. Luckly this one made it this far But seriously I can see why their bellies are so big with this amount of fat - possibly up to 50%.

They are all on a diet now 'cos I'm not paying good food to go to waste!





I have been feeding up to 1.5kg a week over 28 fish. Sometimes they wont eat that much.

So far this year I have used just under 20kg of food. It might be a bit more or less as I moved from the 5mm to the 7 mm a couple of weeks back and still have the remains (3kg?) of the 5mm left.

Nitrates are way off the scale

You've certainly been over-feeding them Marc... they're obese....

wow fatties!!!

Do they have any fat under their skin?
Wonder if it affects the taste, anyone know?



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I was once young and stupid, i'm not so young now

Oh come on Rupert , be nice, trout have feelings as well

Seriously, they were fed as much as they would eat only morning and night, most days. I was under the impression that you were to feed trout as much as they would eat as often as you could.

Bunson did some calculations and the feed is within the amount recomended (1% of bw per day).

The problem that I have now is way too many nitrates and I have 5 planted beds!!

Nitrates are in the vicinity of 800ppm

Imagine what it would be like if I had 25 trout per 500l of media (150 trout for me) or even 1 trout per 10 litres

Hi Julia, no fat under the skin that I could see, only around their internal organs.

I should have measured the width of the fish 'cos it was very thick.

Tasted great.

By my calculations you should only be feeding 28 fish approx 950gms per week and fish of that size only need to be fed once per day. By cutting back on your feed you'll probably find that your nitrates will come down and your fish wont be so obese.

Thanks Gavin. I wish I knew that before. Posts here generally say to feed as much as they can eat at least twice a day.
Anyhow it is a learning experience.
If it is not too much trouble can you post how you worked out the amount of feed.
Will the high nitrates affect the fish?

Could you try and chuck a few of those wavemaker pumps into your tank to get it really swirling to help convert the fat to flesh?

After not feeding them for 3 days, they nearly took my arm off tonight. Wave maker I have (27 of them) - had to top off the tank.

Hahaha now if you could only get them all swimming in the same direction to make a current!

Next time you dont feed them for 3 days make sure to get some scuba gear in case they drag you in!

Ive read they are fine with it up to around 600ppm, not sure if anyone has done any documentation on this

From memory the only thing i have read on here about a fish suffering ill affects from nitrates was 500ppm from RupertofOZ. I dont remember the breed, but it wasnt RT. Maybe you could PM him if he hasnt had any input?

If you really were worried about it you could always use some AP water in some pot plants or something you like and do a water change.