Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello I am currently trying to decide on which fish to put into my 2nd attempt at aquaponics system. I'll be running 1- 275 gallon ibc and 2- cut in half 350 gallon ibcs. I am trying to find a species that I will hopefully be able to breed in this type of setup. The reason behind this need is the closest fish farm is 2 hours or more away and buyiing fingerlings and having them shipped or traveling to get them will get expensive. So how would you rate the breedability of the following species from impossible, moderate, easy:

Blue Tilapia
Yellow Perch
Rainbow trout
Brown Trout
channel Catfish
Koi

Thank you for your time.

From what I've read the tilapia will absolutely breed. the others might require more experience to get them to breed. I'm embarking on breeding blue tilapia currently, mine should be close to breeding age soon.

The others might be a little more picky about needing the right environment, correct water parameters etc. I'd probably go with the tilapia to start out. If you have room to run other tanks as test tanks you could try a few of the others but I haven't seen anyone saying they are breeding the others with any success.

Tilapia are easy to breed and will do so at an early age (3 - 6 months?), though a little difficult to determine the sex. If you have both males and females in your grow out tank the problem is keeping them from breeding. Most people keep a breeding pair / colony in a separate tank so the fry don't run wild in the system. From what I've heard they can be troublesome in the growbeds. I had a batch of tilapia that I never considered were old enough to breed, or had proper conditions. But when I netted them to move to a different tank I suddenly noticed dozens of fry swimming around. I was able to net them and transfer them to a breeding net, ultimately growing them large enough to add to the main tank.

I also raise channel catfish. They are more difficult to determine the sex and will not breed until 2 years old or more. They need proper conditions and then you need to harvest the eggs and raise them in a hatchery tank or so I've heard. I'm hoping mine will spawn for the first time this spring.

Tilapia is probably the best choice and many have been able to breed them in AP. Koi, Channel Catfish, and Yellow Perch have a decent chance of working in AP but I can't recall anyone who's done it (wouldn't surprise me if some of the Koi people are breeding theirs and just not mentioning it though). The trout would probably be the most difficult to get going. Tilapia are a bit more forgiving about smaller fish tanks as well.

only tilapia.
dont get your hopes up that any other species will breed.
not even goldfish will breed in the bare baron fish tank of an AP system.

best way to get fish to breed is give them a natural environment, AP is as far from that as you can get.

Yeah, you'd have to try some different things for most fish other than Tilapia. Say for catfish you'd probably need a good sized tank with a bucket that they can nest in and the right water temperature, then you might have to play around with getting the fry out before they get eaten. Yellow Perch you'd have to provide someplace for them to attach their eggs (like a branch) and probably probably a bunch of other hoops to jump through with them. Not sure about Koi but I've seen them breed in natural looking artificial ponds without prompting so I know it happens. You could make it happen but you'd have to work at it and you'd need multiple tanks in most cases.

Goldfish will breed in an AP system (koi are similar so I'd imagine same deal), but the adults will eat the eggs/fry, so you can't just leave them in there and hope for the best.

I've got a few goldfish breeding videos if you're curious.

you can get them to, but its much rarer than a natural environment.
my goldfish havent bred once in the few years i have had them, however i know if i put some in my pond they will bred within the first couple of weeks.

Every time the water warms up from winter-spring, mine are going at it. Every year without fail.

Weird that yours aren't.

you have anything hanging in there for them to breed onto?
mops? plant roots? etc?

ive seen mine doing the dance before, but never any breeding.
they are currently in the bio filter which is pretty large, there is no way for babies to get sucked out or anything.
if they were going to breed in my system it would be in there.

goldfish breed for me (and quite a bit of lead-up tango) and yabbies.
Topping up water in spring/summer also sets them off sometimes.

Mostly eggs and babies become treats for the others as I don't try and pull them out.
Odd baby survives.

yep I gave up on rigid AP some time ago so have vallisneria in my fish tanks.
I have enough nitrates so don't mind the pond veg getting some.
fish & yabbies nibble on it and sometimes rip it out.

If I bothered with mops or hand milking like Colum does then it would be pretty easy.

I've done mops in there, but find hand breeding quicker and easier.

If they did the dance, then they probably dropped the eggs, and the adults gobbled them up, or they hatched and went through the pump/beds and then got gobbled up.

nah my biofilter is a 6000l water tank half full with rock using traditional SLO as the outlet, if babies ever existed i would have spotted them, there is no way for them to leave that tank.

babies can be very quick once they are large enough for adults to notice, ive had goldfish breed heaps of times in ponds over the years, there are always survivors that dont get eaten.

eggs may have been eaten, but unlikely with the numbers of eggs and the amount of crevices for them to fall into

I still have hopes of setting up a breeding colony of yellow perch. I have an 8ft long 240 gallon aquarium in my house that I want to set up with gravel bottom and put some nice driftwood pieces in there, maybe put some natural lake plants in there to make it natural setting then toss in the perch and see what happens. But at least for now that is on hold because the only place I can get perch locally is at fish days which happens once in the spring and once in the fall... I bought some at the fall fish days but I overloaded the system and caused major ammonia outbreak and everything died.