Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

water comes out of my well kinda warm................, maybe......

if you have warm water, exploit it and grow tilapia. You'll spend less time fussing over water quality and fish mortality. Just my opinion.

i think i will grow tilapia. i just need to get some now.

blue gill (not hybrid bluegill) are very prolific and will start breeding in the first year and definitely in the second year. If enough predators (like bass) are not present in a pond, then you will have legends of tiny bluegill and no big ones. The hybrid blue gill are less prolific and grow larger, faster than none hybrids. I would suggest hybrids if predators are not present. BTW, hybrids do reproduce,just in lower numbers.

I am attempting hybrids in a multiculture with channel catfish and yellow perch. Big cats will eat small blue gill, but there is not strong predation in that mix. This is an experiment for me.

im not sure what type of blue gill i have, they grow to about the size of my hand. i do have some largemouth bass in with them.

MC
Did you get your blue gill from the wild? Or a hatchery?

i got them from a farm pond, i do not know any history before that. they have bred in my pond, but not many fish from them. they grow fast though.

MC, whatever they are, they sound good. Fast growing and no overpopulation....just right.

but i could not harvest many fish from this pond to eat very often.

How big is the pond? Did you ever figure the number of gallons? Do you feed the fish in your pond? Some people get all the fish they want out of 1/4 acre ponds by feeding the fish pellets.

If you had an indoor aquaponic system, you would certainly get more fish per amount of water and your growing season would be extended. Then there are the vegetables. You will get a lot of vegetables from AP.

i feed them, the pond is only 4000 gallons.

only .... lol

Unfortunately, when it comes to non-native species the only things I can think of are the Zebra Mussel, and the song sparrow here in the US and the rabbit and the cane toad in Australia. Without certain predators an introduced species can quickly decimate the native ones.

IMHO, I don't think the bluegill in a closed system is a threat to the native populations, but yet the bureaucrats are the ones who seem to have the upper hand in everything. When I was looking into tilapia I visited the Cherry Snapper site and read the troubles that breeder had to go through.

If you are still intent on getting bluegills there are a number of hatcheries here in the midwest that offer them. You might be able to do an internet search and turn up someone who would be able to send you some via UPS or FedEx.

I saw on here where one AP practitioner was trying to raise yellow perch and had ran into feed change problems. I don't know if bluegills have the same problem. (The perch prefer live food; worms, crustaceans over pelletized feed.)

They go wild for scrambled egg as well.

i found info here about breeding sunfish, which another name for bluegill i am told. here it is if anyone is interested,
http://www.nanfa.org/ac.shtml#archive

here is the exact article,
http://www.nanfa.org/articles/acgreen.shtml