Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

From I think a video from wisconsonseagrant iirc the zooplankton needs to be developed b4 the fry are ready for them. This was for raising perch but I think the concept would be the same for bg or redears. In regards to tht reds what are you feeding the adults?

yah, i got a late start on the green water tanks and the zooplankton but i wasnt expecting the eggs this soon.

I feed the red ears aquamax 400. I feed trained them last year when they were small ~2", view my feed train crappie thread for a little bit of an explanation of the technique i used.


brian

Yup read it and am following them both. If I can get my system settled down I might go use a cast net this weekend for some crappie and gills. The crappie have spawned in our warmer lakes while the gills are just hitting the beds with the redears

add 150 gallons of aquaponics fish tank water into an ibc
add some acidic rain to lower ph (fish tank water is about ph 8.2)
wait 3 days.
equals the beginnings of an algae bloom...

i ordered some rock phosphate to feed it, it will be here tomorrow. If i knew the bloom would be so far along today i wouldnt have bothered.

I nee dto move it to a different container, when i do, I will add some aeration. (We dont want the larva/fry to suffocate at night when the algaee is using 02 and making CO2.)

I expect there will be some naturally occurring zooplankton that already existed in small amounts in aquaponics system but i will seed it with some of the zooplankton mix i mentioned earlier once they start hatching.

Careful with the regs, cast net and possession limits. Gills are not considered game fish in IN and there are no limits. Crappie are considered game fish and 25 limit(no size limit). We can not use cast nets here for crappie. We are allowed to keep wild hook caught GAME fish for aquarium use following size and quantity limits. CHECK your MI regs!

Yup. Ours is on all sunfish including redears, crappie, gills and perch at 25 in combo. I'll have to use the minnow net since cast nets are only allowed on the great lakes and connecting waters

I moved all of the red ears out of the tank except the male last week.

The red ear fry started swimming early friday morning 5/30. I tried to take pictures of them but i just cant get the camera to focus on them in the 60 gallon aquarium. The 100 gallon aquarium i had the bluegill fry in has the back painted black which helped a lot.

The one thing i though was weird is that it seemed like all the fry left the nest but then i saw more eggs over on the far side of the tank in a much smaller nest. I didnt notice the other nest before. I dont know if the male could have moved the eggs or if that was just another nest from a different male and female i didnt notice before.

an additional point of interest is that once the male found the other eggs, he guarded that nest too and would fan the other nest's eggs





I have siphoned off 70% of the aquarium water to the green water tank 3 times now. Each time i refilled the aquarium with fresh water from my outdoor aquaponics system. Each time it siphoned thousands of fry into the green water tank but the 60 gallon aquarium still has wall to wall red ear fry. I read on my pond forum where they say that red ears wont take over a pond like red ears but if that is the case it's not because they produce less eggs. at least that is my humble small sample size of experience.

I have an aerator in the greenwater ibc and the algae bloom is still healthy. This is my best chance of having fry grow large enough to eat commercial feed.

I add a teaspoon of spirulina powder to the 60 gallon tank 2-3 times a day. I dont know if the fry can even eat the spirulina but if they cant the fish tank fry will be dead in the next couple of days. If i still see fry swimming around by thursday or friday i will assume they are eating and i will move the male out of the tank and continue to try to grow the aquarium fry.

brian

like blue gill

How goes it brian?

It's too early to say.

i siphoned a lot of fry into the green water IBC but they are way to small to see for now. i do a small 5% water swap with the aquarium and the green water tank once or twice a day and some of the fry are still alive in the aquarium which i think is better than last time. Not nearly all of them though. Maybe a hundred or so when i checked today.

Still too small to get good pictures.

I have gotten further than last time.

The fry are about two weeks old now. I am pretty sure they were all dead by now last year. It's hard to count them because they are small and spread out and sometimes hiding but I see approx 100-200 still alive in the 60 gallon aquarium. There may be/should be a few hundred still alive in the greenwater tank too. They are 3-4x the size from the newborn. I would say they are about the size of newborn tilapia which are able to eat powdered commercial food, so i have started crushing up a couple of pellets to see if they will try to eat it. If they are i cant tell. I have to be careful because it's hard to vacuum with so many tiny fish and I have to worry about fouling the water more than it already is.

My daphnia, fairyshrimp and clamshrimp hatch attempt seems to have failed so i dont have bigger zooplankton to feed them. They are going to have to eat chunks of algae or powdered food to sustain themselves in the interim if they are going to survive.


These pictures are from last friday so they are about 4 days old.


The green water was still very green.. But now the green water is clearing up. I started a second ibc about a week after the first so i should still have green water for a few more days. From my understanding you cant keep green water going indefinitely. Oddly enough The algae produce an enzyme that will inhibit algae growth. I will end up discharging this water into my aquaponics system as evaporation and transpiration calls for top-ups. I *think* i will have to collect new rain water or treat some municipal water to start a new one.




I dont know if these are some kind of mayflies or mosquitoes or what, but they think they can land on the water but they find that the air stone causes no surface tension and instead of landing, they dive and they drown.



It's possible to see the fry now but still cant get a good picture. The spots i circled show dark spots which are mostly fry.



I am optimistic i will get 100 or so to live this time. I am still learning a lot and there's a few changes i will make to my process the next time i get a spawn.

that's great!

The red ear fry are about three weeks old. Still have between 100-200 alive. They are impossible to truly count because there are alot of them, they are still very difficult to see. The algae blooms have died off. I still do partial water changes to keep the water clean and fresh, but I feel pretty confident that they are eating and growing on crushed/powdered aquamax 400 fish food.

They dont eat at the surface or off the ground so it looks like they only eat as he particles fall.

Shot a 2 min video. The fry are still mostly translucent but they are big enough for the video to pick them up. There's also about two dozen tilapia fry in the aquarium. I saw them swimming at the top of my aquaponics tank yesterday and rescued a few.

-edit- i tried watching the video through the forum youtube window and it wasnt good enough. You will probably need to click the fullscreen button to get a good view

Any updates on these?