Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just a quick update from me before I head off to the salt mines.

Last night I picked up my share of the GPs from KE and put them in the aquarium. Given the losses that KE was getting I was expecting to find a couple of the smaller ones belly up this morning. size varies from about 15mm to just over 20mm.

Pleasantly all are well and swimming around happilly.

I suspect it was the "blob" of worms that I threw in with them that they attacked with gusto that may be the reason for this. Worms are the type you get from aquarium stores. Also the aquarium is indoors.. so temperature may have something to do with it as well. I will do a comparison of the water temps of my system outside and the aquarium when I get home later today.

I will keep an eye on them though and conitue to feed live food until they are a bit bigger & fatter at which point I will try and get them onto pellets. As I said earlier in this discussion I don't believe they have been weened totally onto artificial food.

Himzo

OK I did some temperature measurements last night and this morning.

Last night both the outside system and the indoor aquarium were showing 23°C

This morning the aquarium was at 22°C and the outdoor system was 18.5°C which may be an issue on colder nights.

All the fish are swimming around and no deaths as yet , there doesn't seem to be any "bullying" of weaker fish by their stronger siblings either. There are still plenty of worms in the aquarium.

I will continue with live food until next weekend, I then have two weeks holidays and will try and encourage them to take pellets..

H.

Theres some info on the net somewhere that tells you how they wean Golden Perch. They feed them frozen zoo plankton and then gradually add crumble to it.

Yeah, the link on the aussyfish site. pretty much what I was planning to do.

Theoretically it should be a lot easier as these were meant to have been weaned before we recieved them.

H.

ween small snakes onto mice bu putting skink tails in the mouse's mouth... Could something like this be good for GP? Maybe make pellets with little fishies inside?
-semi serious question ppl-

OK I'll take it seriously
It may work on larger fish, but I think that with these it would be pretty dam impossible as they really don't have mouths big enough for anything bigger than crumbled up pellets. I spoke to Bruce from Ausyfish on thursday and they use the method described on their web site to good effect. He was so helpfull I ordered 50 more fish from him..
I ordered 30 Golden perch, as I'm still unsure as to how much success I will have with this current lot ,had one death over night, and also ordered 20 tan tans.

BTW, I was only able to get a mixed batch because he hed them in tanks and they hadn't been put into ponds yet.

Himzo.

hmmm physical size issues... yes... hmm

Not so many deaths lately. I was resisting giving them anything other than pellets but I gave in when Himzo donated a bag of worms, they loved them. Now the worms have run out I give a mixture of crushed pellets and grated frozen lamb heart and they seem to be eating well.

That's great news.

I went the other way and only fed mine crushed pellets last night and noticed a strange thing. The ones that were just sitting around got real active, yet they weren't all that interested in the worms... go figure..these were the ones I thought would be belly up in a few days.

However I do need to extend the pick up on the filter so that it reaches the bottom of the tank before I put in any more food as the "crap" is not being picked.

Got our free Silver Perch on Thursday. Ranged in size from about 25-40mm. He even threw in 150g of starter crumbles. The SP are obviously much better feeders than the GP, but I am hoping that by having them all together the SP are encouraging the GP to eat the pellets.

Thanks again to Aquablue for the great follow-up service

This tactic can work. I had a few Brown Trout in a tank that were not interested in eating much at all. Solution - put them in a tank full of Rainbow Trout and suddenly they find their appetite. Its amazing what a bit of competition can do.

Hi People,

Just wanted to update where I am with this little experiment,

The little GPs are growing, most are now over the 25mm mark, this is probably due to the fact that I've been home for the last two weeks and have been able to feed more than twice a day. Having the Silvers in with them and the competition for food has, I think, encouraged the GPs to feed more readily. There is no doubt that the Silvers are the better feeders, as their growth rate has been even better. The ones that KE and I recieved were 25-40mm when we recieved them, most are now in the 35 t0 60mm range with 5 or so looking like they should be in the system outside.

There are some "runts" (both SP nad GP) and I suspect they will remain this way until the bigger fish have been moved.

Of the deaths I've had since the introduction of the silver, most have been under the 20 - 25mm size, all have died overnight. making me think that there is some predation happening in the wee hours of the morning.

The GPs outside have made them selfs right at home as well (these are the ones from Ausyfish). They are eating the pellets, but not as much as I would like. The "problem", if it can be called that, is that this tank seems to be attracting a number of small winged creatures which are not able to escape the water. I suspect these are suplementing the GPs diet. No deaths from these since my initial stupidity. see here http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... c&start=60

thats it for now.

H.

That's a good point Himzol, whenever I have culled my fish stock (for eating purposes )- the smaller ones take on a spurt, which puts them in the "you're to be harvested shortly" lot

It's been pretty much the same for me. My problem is that I only have the one tank and that's outside, this summer hasn't been very warm and the water temp is much lower than I had expected (17-18C). I was thinking that their first summer would have been warmer and they would be putting on alot more growth before winter. I've got to get the solar heater rigged up before it gets too cold.

Can't wait to see if this improves things, It's been brass monkey weather up here in the mornings and the water temp has been low. The only fish outside showing much activity at that time are the GPs, and thay have their insect smorgasboard to keep them happy.