Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have about 25 silver perch ranging from 35 to about 80mm in length.
I also have about the same amount of goldfish but these are slightly larger; about 60 to 100mm.

Can they go together in the same system?

I have had my aquaponics system for about 8 months now and so far I haven't produced anything! (fish or vegetables!)

Please help

should be fine. Goldies can be bossed around a bit, but other than possibly being beaten up, they wont be eaten.

Welcome to the forum Col...

Your Silver Perch and Goldies should get along just fine... I've got 5 Silvers & 5 Goldies, both of differing sizes, in the one tank...

I'm more concerned that you say you haven't produced anything in your aquaponics system for 8 months...

Your Silvers wont grow to plate size for 15-18 months... unless you're prepared to heat through the winter, they'll go dormant and hardly eat or grow...

But with 25 Silvers and 25 Goldies... you should be producing copious amounts of veges...

Can you give us a run down of what has happened... as to why not??? ....

hmmm would seem I didn't read the whole question. Damnable wine! Um yeah, are you feeding them? If there's one thing goldfish are good at, it's producing waste. You should have a fair bit of veggies doing very well...

Depends on type of system, ph, water amount, amount of growbeds, system location etc could be any reason why nothing has grown.

The fish go fine together though.

Thank you very much for the swift responses. Much appreciated!

We started our system with about 30 goldfish and planted a number of different veggies including toms, beans, various lettuces, bok choi, chives....
Anyway things seemed fine at first. Everything looked healthy but nothing was getting any bigger except for the beans which grew very well up to a height of about 6 inches then they just stopped growing. The gold fish grew no problems. So did the green weed in the tank. In fact it grew to about an inch thick!

After taking advice from Backyard Aquaponics, we increased the feeding of the fish from once a day to 2-3 times a day. This made no difference apart from making the tank a bit dirtier.

We decided to switch to silver perch in January. We thought we were buying fingerlings but ended up with 30 babies, less than 10mm long! They survived and grew well, some of them up to about 80mm (I think I can now call them fingerlings!). We replanted our crop but exactly the same happened again.

We treated the green weed with a barley based product which definitely made an impact but still nothing from the veggies...

We have moved house and I took the opportunity to scrub out the tank so it's now all nice and clean. I'll add the goldies back to the tank so hopefully we wont be short of nitrates. But, I'm not sure how much 'bacteria' will have survived the move.

The spec. for my system is as a standard "Backyard Aquaponics Courtyard" system.
1000 litre tank, single bed, north facing location up against a shed, currently exposed but I'm considering putting in some shade cloth to cut down sun and wind... we'll be replanting at the weekend.

Any advice would be appreciated....

Col... first job... shade your tank...

It sounds from your past experience ... that most of the nutrients were being taken up by algael growth... which was probably also playing havoc with your pH and oxygen levels...

Second job... along with the first.... get a Master Test Kit....

Measure your pH, nitrites, nitrates... and water temp.... and post the results up please...

As you're starting the system from scratch... you'll have to cycle it up again... so now is the time to get it right... although with the weather being cooler it may take some time...

Putting the goldies in straight away shouldn't be a problem... as long as there aren't too many... and you feed lightly... How many goldies do you have??

And what happened to the Perch??

Certain sizes don't go together =]

Golden Perch are totally different to Silver Perch.... are ambush feeders by nature... more akin to a cod.... and Goldens are cannabalistic... and will happily eat each other...

Stock a dam with a 100 Golden Perch... come back three years later... and you'll probably have three of four monsters...

ah. good to know!

Col - you got your fish from Gidgi I assume They should never have been sold that size.

Thanks again guys, I'm learning heaps here!

I'll get some shade on the system - hopefully over the weekend.
I'll also check with Backyard Aquaponics and see if I can get a Master Test Kit.

Rupert, I still have the silver perch. They are a little smaller than the goldfish but quantities are about the same - appriox. 25 to 30 of each. I've kept them seperate, initially because the perch were so small when I got them (about 10mm and yes Outbackaussie, I got them from Gidgi!). Now that they are closer to the same size as the goldfish, and following your advice, I'll put them all in together.

Once I've had a chance to test the water I'll post the results.
In order to try and save some of the bacteria from the setup we had before we moved, we kept about 5 litres of the original water so hopefully this will help us kick start our latest 'attempt'.

Thanks again everyone, and I'll keep you posted!

Coming in late on the discussion, have been away...

Col, I started my system off with 15 goldies, little tackers, 3-5cm, and added the SP later.
Did not have a problem, they all played nicely together. SP range from 10cm up to 30cm, goldfish grew to about 10/12cm long and about the same in girth in about 6mths.

GF ate heaps more than the SP and got bigger, fatter, faster. Best thing was that I was able to sell them back to the petshop for store credits

Your system is looking great!

I'm considering moving mine out in to the open due to lack of sun, just don't want to introduce another issue so am wondering how did you go with the rain over the last few days? Any effect on the fish?

Cheers

Lucky

Goldies seem to like the company.

all I can say is y'all must be feedin ya perch mung beans n whacky weed for them to be so peace lovin.....my perch get a few bronze comets every so often as a treat