Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I had to get my Silver Perch shipped from Qld to Melbourne. It was expensive, and I had to take a day off work to pick them up - because the shipping company will not courier live packages to your doorstep.

I don't want to go through that again. So from now on I am breeding my own stock.

Three questions:
1. It looks like breeding Silver Perch is not easy. Has anyone done it successfully in an Aquaponic setup?
2. Are Jade Perch easier to breed? Where would I get Jade Perch from?
3. What problems will I encounter? What do I need? I have an aquaponic setup, with three ponds (one for the perch, one for duckweed, and one empty), but I can fit in a fourth pond if I have to.

Thanks,
David Clarke

Aeldric, where did you buy them from?

Best document i could find (actually buy ) is in the dowload section. Have a read, last three pages have the summary

I believe jade perch would be the same as silver.

I got the fish from the wonderful people at Australian Native Fish:

anfe_nativefish@yahoo.com.au

They bent over backwards to help me. My problem is that the freight company won't deliver live freight to the door, so every time I get new fish, I need to take a day off work to pick them up! I can't keep burning "sickies" to get fish.


Thanks for the pointer. I will read the file.

Steve,

It looks like you have Jade Perch?

And you are in Melbourne?

Where did you get them from?

Want to split your next purchase?

Hey Dave.

The jade perch may be easier to breed but you will need to have heated water for them, so this will then make your systems a whole lot more complicated, and/or more expensive to run with heating.

How big are your silver perch, are they a reasonable size? That paper that Steve suggested has the answers that you are looking for and it's well worth a read.
I'm pretty sure that last summer my perch were beginning to show breeding type behaviour and this year I am keen to try and provide them with the right conditions to see if I can get them to breed.

How are your systems going? How many perch do you have in them? Would love to hear a little about your set up...

Despite the fact that we are in the middle of winter in Melbourne, and it rarely goes above 15 outside, the water in my pond is currently 17 degrees C. This is due to several factors:
- The pond is inside a greenhouse
- The pond is lined with black
- It has been another mild winter and it rarely drops below 6 degrees (Global warming may devastate the globe – but on the positive side, it could be good for Jade Perch in Melbourne…. Sorry that comment was in pretty bad taste)

I suspect that I can get the temperature up further in summer, and then keep it fairly high using solar heating in winter. So I may be able to support Jades if I have to.



The 25 silver perch that I have are still fingerlings, so I have plenty of time to figure out breeding. If I can’t make it work, I am going to look at Jade Perch. Or I may look at Jades anyway...


The system is still quite new. I spent a few weekends building my first “proof of concept”, which is a pretty simple ebb/flood system sitting on top of a 400 liter pond, inside of a greenhouse.

The pond is well established, with algae, duckweed, and freshwater snails. The growbeds have seedlings of basil, parsley, lettuce and spinach. Hopefully the seedlings + the duckweed + the algae will balance the 25 silver perch fingerlings. At the end of the first week, the ammonia levels were high (6 ppm). This did not seem to bother the perch (tough little buggers). I’m hoping that when I test again I will find that the ammonia level is dropping.

The greenhouse is big enough to fit 4 ponds, consisting of the existing pond + one more 400 liter pond and 2 x 700 liter ponds.

Intended use:
1 x Algae research
1 x duckweed
2 x fish ponds

Oh... I forgot to mention the plug flow anaerobic digester. I use it to feed the algae and duckweed.

David C.

Sounds like you've got things fairly well sorted there David, I'll jump in before someone else does here. Have you got any pictures?

You have a greenhouse big enough to fit 4 ponds and growbeds? Damn that is going to make some people jealous.. I'll keep you informed how I go with breeding the silvers this summer, mine are big, probably at least 2 kg now, and ready for breeding.... I hope...

Sorry David you missed the boat on jade perch I put the call out a few months back, and ended sharing an order with warren. As far as i know ausyfish only have about 100 left till next season, but my fish accomodation has no vacancies

The next lot of fish i'll be getting is in nov / dec and they will be tandanus tandanus (eel tailed catfish) I am desperatly looking for someone to share an order with for these as minimum quantity is 100.

your ammonia is a bit high. I'd probably cut back on the feed untill it starts dropping, but then be aware that the nitrites will go though a rise. You'll probably find that the ph is quite low, i cant see the fish having survived otherwise. whatever you do don't raise the PH too much with this level of ammonia in the water.

C'mon, post those pics of the green house and make me jealous

Mild winter which melbourne are you living in? its been the coldest april - june since 1950 a half filled bathtub in the backyard was frozed almost two inches deep last week.

Steve

EB, how have you resisted eating those 2 KG fish?

easy, they are to nice and big to eat...... They are in my system on the back verandah with a very small growbed, this system is purely for aesthetic purposes and I want to see how big I can get the fish in there..

I wasn't impressed when my murray cod of 1.5kg died late last year....

What happened to the Murray Cod EB ? Any ideas ?

Mojo

Nice one EB

Hi Aeldric - welcome to the board. What is a plug flow anaerobic digester?

I also wanted to know what that was... found a good source of info here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digester ...
but how have you got this set up at home (any chance of some pics??
)