Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All,

I am a little worried about my silver perch. The last few days they have been a lot less active than usual. Normally when I open the lid to the IBC fish tank, all the SP dart away to the back of the tank where it's dark and hide thre. Recently they just hang around and don't seem too bothered when I open the take. What really worried me tho was today when I went to scoop out any uneaten food, some of the fingerlings weren't moving away to the back of the tank, even when the scoop was right next to them.

I amd hoping this is due to the cooler weather in Perth, but I'd like to know if I should be worried by this behaviour.

Thanks
JP.

Feed very sparingly in the winter or you will be hooking food out constantly. Silvers get very slow in cold water so dont be too worried

Thanks very much for the reply Richard.

Can you provide any advice regarding how much to feed, e.g. half what I did during summer?

More like 1/10th of what you fed at the height of summer. If there is any spare food in there don;t feed them for 3 - 5 days. They can go weeks without feeding. I look at the bottom of the tank. If it is nice and white sea shells they get a feed. If there is debris on the floor I will wait for a few days until it looks cleaner.

Keep the Aerators going, salt the pond and also I like to put in a few bags of chook sea shells to buffer the Ph.

I only have silvers any more, they are the most hardy of all of them. But they don't do terribly much for 9 months of the year.

I have some I reckon would be about 4kg, they are about 18" long

+1 for what these guys are saying.

You can suppliment with worms and things like that as they seem to go of the pellets in the cooler months.

Throw in a few lettuce leaves and no pellets. They will graze on the leaves when hungry and like Charlie said they will go a few worms every few days