Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I need to get some fish to assist with Mussel Breeding, you can Read Here to see why, the problem being I need fish that wont eat my Juvenile Marron, I was thinking of some minnows from the local creek, any other idea's?

Think it would take a pretty tough fish to attack your mussels Nobby.... yellow/black bream probably would... that's there natural food type.... Silver Perch are fine and I think trout would be OK as well ....

Anything else I think would be fine.... I'm getting Pacific Blue Eyes.... cheap, self breeding....

trick is do they require a specific species?

might have a higher strike rate if you use a species endemic to the location of the mussels.

ring Neil and ask him what fish they have in their mussel dams. they must have some for them to be breeding. use the ones he has in his dam.

Talked to him yesterday about that.... he has his Silver Perch broodstock in the same dam...

Said the mussels didn't seem to be that specific about "what" fish were around.... more a case of just who happened to be about at the time..... whores...

ok, but we could say that SP were a 100% guaranteed species

I guess... that's what Neil is using

I'll talk to him Monday 12th... when I pick up the some Blue-Eyes and some Yabbies...

May do Steve, but I think he said these don't care what fish they have, he said he had mussels with Yabbies,
Hey Rupe it's Nocky, and not worried about the fish eating mussels, I am worried about fish eating the Juv Marron, which I think Perch will do

.... soorry Nocky..... genuine mistake, no offence meant....

Skim reading again.... probably depend on the size of the fish... with plenty of hides or some sort of seperating grill?.....

My worst fears are realized, this thing is getting out of proportion, but because of my mesh idea maybe the fish wont get at the Juv's but again then what are the best fish to use, have access to bucket loads of goldfish but then I would have to convert my Marron Project into a aquaponic project as well, that was going to be stage 2, and goldfish are boring, must be some small to medium herbivore freshwater fish somewhere, creek minnows are everywhere until you want some, nowhere to be found now, if no solution I may transfer all mussels into the hopefully going fish system by September, and leave until November as they should have spawn by then, be interesting to see what mussels do in a fish system so hope you guys get some soon, will hopefully get some pics up in my Marron thread below of my water last week and this week, it is amazing how it has changed

tell us of your filtering observstions. sounds like you have had great success in this area with mussels

Steve will get a pic tomorrow of tank now and have photo of water the day they went in, (pic Link Below), but had cloudy water as explained in my thread (link Below) and was getting algae as well due to not enough shade, but water basically clear now, but not too clear, noticed a big difference after 2 days, this is with 24 mussels in a 1.8mt X .8mt round tank, you will be impressed when yours arrive, (may even be able to get rid of the famous paper clip) but still need a solution to my fish problem,

so your fish problem is thus: you want fish that wont eat your marron but will allow the mussels to spawn?

silver perch will take a while to get to a size were they will eat a reasonable sized marron.

i think that segregation or false bottom is going to be your best bet.

Pic,s of my tank after I week of Mussels, pic's may not show fully the difference, but one with Mussel on Rock is I week ago, and other is today, in the bottom pic you can see the bottom of tank, 1 week ago was battling to see the rock with mussel, as pic of mussel was taken from waters edge almost

Well may have found the answer, an eastern state small fish Pacific Blue Eyes (pseudomugil signifer) are good for eating mosquito larvae, 70c each so will give them a go and post if they work

You can get them from www.aquablueseafoods.com.au but they are in NSW so I don't know what the freight would be to WA.