Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Okay I give up. How and what do you feed your silver perch??

I bought about 5x 200mm size silver perch recently and was hoping to get some growth in them by the end of summer. Maybe have one for dinner or something. The water has warmed up, barra in the same system (different tank) is eating but the silvers are not... Or at least they are not eating the floating pellets I throw into the tank. There are some small 50mm goldfishes in the same tank and it is my impression that silver perch do not eat other fishes. So what are they eating??

Do they only eat only sinking pellets??

I don't think they are much stringy algae to eat in the tank. There are algae on the sides of the tank wall but it is the film type...

Silver Perch are generally "mid column" feeders... and prefer a slowly sinking "semi-floating" pellet...

But should take a "floating" pellet in time... probably not with the Barra around though... as the Barra will just smash the pellets before the silvers have a chance...

The Silvers are probably feeding on anything that slowly sinks...

Silvers feed OK from 20 degrees upward... but don't really attack their feed unless the temp is above 25...

And, sorry... unless you're prepared to have a "small" meal... you wont be eating your Silvers this summer...

But they will make it through next winter without problems....

P.S ... what size pellet are you using??

Barra and Silver are same system but separate tank...



3mm Skretting floating...

OK, pellet shouldn't be too big for them... might just be they're used to a different feed at the hatchery...

What's your water temp...

Just remebered... you guys have a cold front approaching tonight I believe... try them again tomorrow....

If you have just got them, or moved them it may take a while for them to settle down being larger.

I know mine took a while to start feeding at all which was partly due to temps. I ended up crushing some pellets a bit so they sank faster and dropping them as close as I could to in front of them without letting them see me.
For a month they didn't touch the food unless it went right past their nose.
Once my water temp got above 20deg they really started looking for the food and I started mixing in floating pellets. Now they don't rush to a corner in the tank when they see me either.
Most still swim rapidly up and snatch some food then dive but a couple have started copying 4 goldfish I have in as cleanup crew.

Well I got them about 4 days ago... And I think water temperatures should be at least above 20degC... stop checking when the trouts came out... although the barra in the same system are eating so the water temps should not be too low...

I will keep persisting... and maybe the fact that I added goldfishes in about two days ago, might have put the silvers off a bit... goldfishes are only small, but some are eating but they still freak out when I come close... so I guess it is patience then...

Yep, definitely not too big and they're definitely happy to take the floating pellets. I usually see a wait of a couple of minutes before they start rising to the pellets and even then, they just ripple the surface instead of going nuts like the trout.

I'd let 'em go hungry for 3 or 4 days ivan and try again. They should be happy at 19º, but as Rupe has indicated, could be adjusting to the environment change and the atmospherics, though I'm not seeing much effect from the latter this time round. My 100 SPs and 30 BB wolfed down about 6 large handfuls last night.

Mine are only about 150mm long and eating lots of the BYAP pellets.