Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

In a tank like yours you should be getting much closer to 1kg, i suppose your tank is too big to bother with a current though.
my guy that was over 800gm was tasty as.
I dont think he would have been more flavoursome if he was smaller.

Excellent!! There must be a thread for this. Tips for faster growing fish. I made a few mistakes this year, as I have every year. I didn't have food ready to go at the start. Cost me a week or 2. I got the wrong size. It sounds like (and was suggested by experts ) keeping the water a bit warmer helps. Yes trout like cold water but they don't grow. Clean the tank???? There must be a better way
I will get this right one day.

Isn't it more about filtration, feed rates, stocking density and time in tank rather than just FT volume? I caught a trout in my tank a couple of days ago that weighed 444g and, with a couple of months of the season left, I am happy with that.

PJ is right. You can feed 50 times a day but unless you bio filter can process the protein efficiently, you will end up with problems. Fat, muddy tasting fish with an overwealmed biofilter. In previous years I have fed my trout hard to put the weight on them but only to end up with fat, muddy fish. This year I have backed right off on the feed and my trout look to be in much better condition.

In my opinion freshwater grown trout are best to eat in the 300 - 450gm size range, this is the same size you generally see them in the fish shops. Trout that have sexually matured are not as good eating, particuarly the males. The same applies to Atlantic Salmon which is why Salmon farms only breed and grow out females for the food market.

That makes sense, Troutman, although very few of us take the trout through to a second season that would allow them to develop sexual maturity. Personally, I look forward to trying to discern a difference in taste between <500g fish and >500g fish.

more food and more excersize PLJ.
What you listed is true, but i got a yearling (only survivor in a new system - so a couple months of slow growth while all the rest died) that was maybe 100gm max to over 800gm in about 5 few months.
The swirl i had in the tank didnt even seem that strong, if i was willing to spend a bit more on power i could have had him at nearly 1.5kg by the end of season i would think.

Its not comletely about tank size, but dont expect to get 1.5kg fish in an IBC. My guy was starting to get a bit big to swim comfortably when scared for my 2.5kl tank .... and he was alone.

If your bio-filter is sized correctly... then feeding multiple small feeds will actually lessen the load on the bio-filter... not overwealm it...

If you have sufficient current in your system... and sufficient filtration...then the fish shouldn't be fat... or taste muddy...

Thanks for stating the obvious rupe. You missed what I was trying to say but keep at it and you'll get there eventually.

Nah Charlie... was reinforcing what you said...

Sorry.. should have included a

It is tempting to shift to five or six smaller feeds per day rather than two large ones. I am pretty sure, however, that the size gap between my fish will only increase if I adopt that strategy since the biggest fish will almost certainly hit the feed first, leaving the smaller fish with next to nothing. At least when I throw in a feed of 350-400g, spreading it as much as I can across the surface, there is a chance that the little tackers might be able to snatch a pellet or two.

Actually, it is a bit like capitalism.

You will get a small percentage of males that will mature during the usual grow out season, I recently moved some left overs of this years stock out of the shed to make way for the fry and several of the males had already developed the hooked jaws and darker colouring.



I doubt you would notice much difference but that may depend on how you cook it. Apparently females have far superior taste buds than males so perhaps get the puddle princess to see if she can taste a difference.

I had a male last year that developed the hooked jaw and darker colouring. When I harvested him he secreted a volume of milt. I spose that was approx 6 month grow out. It's on my system thread somewhere.

Same Charlie... I was surprised to see the milt...

Okay... I've resisted the urge for months now... to pull some fish out and weigh them, but a couple of days ago I netted three out, just for a quick look, but never caught any of the big fatties and didn't weigh the ones I caught, I didn't want to stress them too much... then this morning I read this thread again and my competitive nature has gotten the better of me, so I sat the net in the tank and let the fish get used to it for a while then patiently waited for the biggest fatty to swim over it, I ended up getting two of them so weighed both. I think the fatty (615gm/34cm) may be the biggest in the tank, his unlucky sidekick (489gm/31cm) is probably middle of the road for the rest in the tank.

Lately mine seem to have stopped putting on as much length and are getting fatter, I've got a couple that are only about 30cm but look like kegs, they're fat all the way down to their tail... compared to the others their peduncles look like rugby players necks. What’s the theory/thinking behind the fatties not tasting as good?... is it primarily sexual maturity, hormones etc, or does the fat content alter the taste?... because I’ve seen them in the past with large fat deposits in their stomachs. It'll be interesting to see what these are like when harvested and cleaned, because as the pics show, they all have a rather fat guts... which poses the question, if they're now just building up a fat store and not more flesh, are they better off being harvested prior to this point, as Gav suggests?... opinions?