Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Immune booster .. and that is why they are sooo. Good.
But synthetic from Petrochemicals.... ummmm. Not sure I like that idea..

Try some turmeric as a good substitute and go the organic too for best people friendly alternate. I use this in my food too for the carotene and immune system boosting.

(edit) The astaxanthin i have is derived from a micro algae.

Do you make your own trout feed Ocean ? What do you use as ingredients ? I like the idea of the turmeric to help with the coloring.

Me too, I have a heap of turmeric, grown in the AP

I have not been using my DIY food extensively with the trout. The volume and frequency of the feeding in the AP makes it easier to mainly use the pellets. I have been giving it to them twice a week. My Barra being in my fish room till the weather warms have been feeding daily on it.

My background is in marine ornamentals, we developed the feed because of the frequency of disease in imported fishes. Since using this feed for almost 25 years now I have never used a med on my fish.

I cant say too much when it comes to FW fishes as my experience is limited to the past 12 months of keeping an AP system and i have not researched extensively what implications are of feeding marine based proteins to FW fish. A lot of my initial research on the ingredients used are based on studies done with various FW species. I would suggest caution unless you know better.

The protein I used as a base for the food is fish scraps or cheaper cuts of fish. So you need a good cheap supply of this or you will be feeding an expensive food. I would suggest in an AP system the main food would always be a cheap pellet. You could use a small feed daily to help supplement the pellets and use more extensively the DIY food when fish have bacterial or disease issues. A quality pellet will possibly have many of these elements within the food at any rate.

Our food is made as follows.

the ingredients I will call 'active' are.

1 fresh crushed clove garlic prefer new season juicy Aussie garlic, not horrible old dry Chinese garlic. I double this when using to treat disease, but you would be best to get them used to the taste first.
(Following all available from health food or chemist as pure powder additives)
1/2 teaspoon of spirinula powder
1/2 teaspoon of astaxanthin (if you have it)
1/2 teaspoon of tumeric
1 teaspoon beta glucan-3D (Can be hard to find brewers yeast powder can be substituted)
1/2 teaspoon calcium ascorbate
Contents of two 1000mg fish oil caps

This is mixed with about 1kg fish flesh and 50g prawn flesh.

Fish to use is best if it breaks down to tiny pieces for feeding smaller fish. Shark meat may be a bit sinue'y But the barra have been feeding fine with shark. The fish must be cleaned of all bone and skin.

Method is to simply put all the wet ingredients into a good blender with sharp blade, blend till fish is completely broken down to small bits but not to much a mushy paste. Its really done to feel once you have made a batch or two you know when it looks like its done enough to stop. Then add Sprinula, asthaxin, yeast and tumeric will thicken the mix. If its to thick to blend add some water (or HUFA is ideal) to thin add some more dry ingredient.

I just spread this on a sheet of baking paper, 6-7mm thick and cut into squares when its frozen. To use I defrost on a plate and break into smaller pieces with a butter knife to match what I am feeding if needed.

Thanks, yes thats a lot of trouble to go to for hungry trout when good commercial pellets are available.

the stupid part of any sort of unnatural farming, eggs from backyard chooks that eat no pellets have better yolks than bought eggs.

So the first of this years troutses, scooped out 6 with the net and kept the 3 larger for tonight's dinner, all weighing in at around 600 grams, and a pic of the biggest to prove it... Though not the biggest in the pond by a long way.



Another 97 where they came from! ...Oh and these were 5 inch fingerlings in march.

Today I decided it was time to start on last years trout. This one was in the tank since September 2014 but I have always been under feeding. Last month I started feeding as much as they will take and will keep that up with this Septembers batch of 200. So hopefully next year I can get closer to 1kg.


484grams My biggest to date.

Nice one Johny5 well done, was just thinking the trout appreciation thread had been quiet.
September seems like a strange time to get trout, so close to summer. How big are they when you get them?

Hi skeggley

Very small about 2 - 3cm. They come from SA Fly Fishing Association trout hatchery. The bonus is that they are normally so small come summer they survive the heat. The only problem with the extra feed is that they are now just on 10cm. Once the larger trout are out of the second tank I will split new batch up over both tanks to hopefully improve survive ability over summer.

Ooooh I'd forgotten about trout appreciation thread! Good timing as I will be trying my very first trout this weekend.

I'm very excited about it, being I've never ever kept fish of any kind on any level before setting my system up and combined with being totally new to AP in general it's been a steep learning curve, almost overwhelming when getting into the nitty gritty.... so success will make it all that much better I'm sure it'll be the best tasting fish ever hahaha

On the above regarding the flesh colour, when I was a youngster a farmer near our property who had stocked his dam with rainbows didn't like the taste of the fish (too muddy apparently but he never flushed them in clean water either because they tasted fine to me at the time) so he just left them alone BUT did allow the young kids in the area throw a line in and take what we caught. He once told us the reason why the flesh was so pink (almost red) was because the fish fed on yabbies... Then I read above and see the receipe includes prawns so makes sense I guess!

Anyways that's my lame attempt at a post, I'll shuddup now til I have some trout BBQ shots *edit maybe this make it better if it works! I love watching them feed...

You will have a great meal with trout Cunningstunter.

A few things that I learnt along the way and this may just my taste buds. I have a bucket of tank water with an air stone in it when I start to harvest the Trout. I place them in the bucket for a few minutes then I iki-jime them before I cut just behind the gills to bleed them out.

The fish I have dispatched in this manner have all tasted great where as the fish not dispatched so quickly have tasted over oily.

Hot weather on the way Perth folks

- maybe time to harvest any trout still lurking about! I kept 6 back to see how far I could take them - been happy so far though tank temps have not gone beyond 21 degs. Reckon they may even reach 26+ by the end of this weekend.

Yup Matt it's starting to warm, I've been meaning to pull some of the trout but I get so damn attached to the buggers.
Oh well, stay tuned people.