Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi board,
what would you do when you have a deep pond, with dark water and fish how eats from the tank bottom?
When weather is really good and very hot they come to the surface to eat.

What are your experience to know if they eat, and how much you can feed ?


Thanks
Dom

Some of us in Australia have Murray River catfish (Tandanus tandanus) and they certainly come to the surface to eat pellets, even though they are conventionally a bottom feeder. So they can certainly do it. I find them to be quite an intelligent species.

How much do you feed them ? Depends on how mature the fish are and how often you feed them.

Hi Tiggar,
I tend to feed my fish a little but often. Two teaspoons of food about four times a day.
It depends on how many fish you have.
I have 15 Silvers and 10 R/B Trout and they are all doing well.
I would crush some food up to make sure the bottom feeders get food as well incase you also have top feeders.
If your fish are not feeding because of being cold for example, cut the quantity down a bit. If they are hungry they will generally come to the top and show you they want more.

As a bottom lover myself, I'd like to point out that I have no troubles feeding....

I'll have to be careful next time I call in

Hi @all,
thanks for your replys.
I've about 200 small carps and 50 bullheads in my 10.000L pond.
Some of the carp come up and eats some floating pelletts but the most are shy and eat from the bottom.

The cats never come up to pick up the food

That makes quite a big difference, 10,000 L FT and 250 fish.
Generally you feed the fish till they feed for approx. 3 minutes and that's it for that session. I feed my fish four times a day. ( small quantity but more often ) With a deep dark pond it would be hard to check if they were feeding or not.
I suppose it would go more on water quality. If all readings are good all should be well. But with 250 fish the amount of food is a bit of hit and miss.
How much food do you currently feed the fish at the moment?

Actally we feed them twice a day, in the morning and at the afternoon/evening.
So 150 & 200g each day.
The readings are very good:
PH: 6,8
Amm: 0
Nitrit: 0,1
Nitrat: 25

Have to give weekly 20g chelated iron (13%) and kohlrabi gots yellow leave with green veins.

No one has experience with dark or green water and feeding fish who doesn't come to the top ?

I can think of a few things that might help.

1. You could build some sort of feeding net that can be lowered to the bottom with the food in it. After a set number of minutes raise it back up and see what's left.

2. Do a sampling for fish size to get an idea how many pounds of fish are in the tank. Base the feed amount on this and the temperature.

3. Get an underwater camera so you can watch to see if you are overfeeding.