Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a new AP system about 5 weeks old.
I have 30 fish about 100 mm long (average).Mix of 15 Silver perch, 8 Koi and 7 commets.
As I think the commets may breed I have put a tower of 2 milk crates in the tank. This was to give the fish some cover. I have also introduced 3 onion bags into the milk crates in the hope that they might lay fry or what ever in the onion bags.
The crates are getting a bit of algae growing on them, just an observation, not woried about it.
Can anyone see anything that I should be doing differently to try and enable reproduction.
Also has anyone had Silver perch breed in their system.
I am looking into getting another system going for fingerlings or as a hospital tank.
Any thoughts?

Well I think in AP, we generally refrain from having structures/obstacles in the tank to avoid possibly trapping or harbouring bad or rotting waste. Such waste could lead to poor water quality and could hence be bad for the fishes.

If you want the comets to breed, put them in a shallow pond/tank instead. Usually no filtration is required, just cover the whole surface with duckweed to block out the sun and inhibit algae growth.

I think Silvers do not breed that easily.

Aha,
Cheers Ivan, I will keep an eye on water quality but I think I will leave tower in as the fish like to hide in it. May pull it later when I get some duckweed in. I think I might head to that Belmont lake soon to get some Azolia as its just down the road.
Might try the shallow tank for commets breeding. I did notice when I was up at Woodvale Koi farm getting Koi that their ponds were pretty shallow maybe 300mm deep.
Cheers for the input Ivan.

Don't put duckweed into the AP tank, but the shallow stand-alone tank.

Not sure what they call them but the young kois (days old) requires shallow ponds as the depth/height of the water above them would otherwise kill them apparently. Too much water pressure.

I thought silvers were very hard to get to reproduce....troutman will know