Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How much should I be paying for fish food and where do I buy it from? I'm almost out.

I pay $70.00 for 30 kg in ballarat

I'll try and find something similar in Adelaide. The olds are heading down this weekend and might get some for me.

any good fodder store should stock lauke barra pellets. Expect to pay $70 a bag, or you could get it direct from Lauke on the sturt highway at Daveyston. Get the 4mm and use the fines and crushed ones for the silvers

Cheers Monya. I'll give them a ring, find out if they have a shop front or office. The olds will barely have to slow down.

The message I've got is that Laucke don't make fish food as such, just pressed pellets and they break up in the water. I was told this where I bought the fish and again when I phoned mate with a local fodder shop. The guy I bought the fish from offered me a 20kg bag of #5 (?) for $88, but the fodder guy has no particular interest in fish food and merely stated an experience. My question is whether this might have been the case a while back, but Laucke have since changed their formula and these people haven't been back. Something along those lines was suggested by the lady at Tooperang. I've rang Laucke but missed Brad, who is apparently the man to talk to.

Yea our local feed store did the same thing quote [no they dont make that but i can get this ] i even took in a bag and all i got must be an old bag

I hate when I re-read one of my posts and realise I've given even myself the wrong impression.

I've got 3 separate bad reports on Laucke in the last few months.
1: The lady at Tooperang suggested, in the nicest conceivable way you can discredit someone, that the Laucke pellets were not quite what they were after once, but went on to say they are better now.
2: My fish supplier was much more adamant about their unsuitabililty, but kept changing the subject, or reaffirming that his $88 bag would do me, everytime I tried to prise the brand he uses out of him.
3: Then there is my local fodder bloke, who has no vested interest other than I rang him about it and he'd found, from limited experience I think, similar stories about the Laucke pellets, but he's seeing what he can chase up and he'll get back to me.

But...

The lady at Tooperang suggested they are OK now.....
and Monya said they were OK so that just about clears that up!!!

F&F uses he Laucke pellets... for both all his fish....

Yep jade perch, silver perch, trout ,and gold fish.

Brad from Laucke called me back. He confirmed that the pellet will break up and sink after a while and that could be a problem in my tank situation, but not so much for dam feeders. Given the support for them here, it seems they will probably be OK, so long as I'm careful with my feed rates.

My fish have not consistency at feeding time. Yesterday I fed on daylight, lunchtime and dusk. The half light feedings finally went more like they are supposed to. The trout came up and cleaned up each handful as I threw it in for about 10 mins. Plenty of splashing and not much leftover. Lunchtime was a non-event. I figured the secret was in the halflight, but this morning (and again at lunch) nothing much happened. The thing is, there is very little food left floating on the top when I check next, suggesting they are a bit shy sometimes and feed more once I've left. This causes a problem with the Laucke feed if I can't watch them feed so as not to put too much in because it wont float and can't be cleaned up later.

DISASTER!!

We've had a fatality.

We actually got a small aquarium from friends and Michelle commandeered 3 silvers for it. All had been going well but a clean up of the filter and the rocks obviously caused some problems. I'm not really sure. MY fish are all fine.

So AP is better than aquariums....

So it would appear. It might even be suggested that the management personnel could be the difference, but you didn't hear it from me

Not really happy with the Laucke pellets. Not because they wont do the job, but because a majority of them sink straight away. As they sink I can see the trout cleaning them up, but now they seem to refuse to jump at any on the surface, and that was the fun part that they'd only just got good at on the cat food. As I mentioned earlier, my debate now is, when I have a look an hour after feeding and all the pellets are gone (and they are), did the trout clean them up in their own time or did they sink to the bottom? I am wondering if I can add another fish breed in to feed off the bottom, or get some yabbies perhaps? I don't want things eating each other. They are to hard too count.