Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here is a question which I am sure will be of interest to many people:
which fish specie are suited to co-habitation in Aquaria settings, including BYAP?

I am about to de-stock my 5KL FT of Tilapia due to falling water temperatures.

Water temperatures should fall to around 5°C minimum (no lower I hope)

As far as I see, My re-stocking options are:

• Silver Perch - 150 -200 mm long (unknown weight) available at about $3 each available soon,
• Rainbow Trout - unknown length but ~100g weight, available in May.
• Other varieties??

I will need to get more fish as soon as I de-stock, to maintain my GB and plants. The Silvers are available soon, so they are an obvious choice.

Here is the dilemma I have. If I get the Silvers, can I also get the Rainbows, and have then co-exist, or would there be a massacre?

Does anyone have any experience in this area?

I also have the option of stocking my 1KL (content varies from 500 - 750L due to pump float switch operation) sump with one or other species, I do have a few Comets in there ,which I can remove if necessary.

What are your recommendations?

TIA
Tony

Silvers will die at about 2 degrees.... at 5 degrees, they'll survive but effectively wont feed or grow....

If you can get some established Silvers ie 250g +, you could sleep them through to spring/summer and have them ready by Xmas...

Trout would be your best bet I think

Can you put some sort of gates and separate the fish from each other?

I'd say that the trout and the silver would ok, not 100% sure since i haven't seen any together, but with what i know it should be possible.

Trout get mad at feeding so would be dominant at feeding times.

Some people have mixed tilapia with other fish and it seems to be good.

The principal fact in mixing fish in aquarium is behaviour, water depth in which they live: top layer, middle and bottom. Usually this can be known by watching the shape of the mouth. All is also question of proportion too, i wouldn't stock them all at one third of total volume but reduce the aggressive fish, increase the school fish and bottom feeders.
I'll try to find some stuff i have in my books and come back to it later.

Amacafish,
Thanks. I look forward to your next posts.

Rope,
I will need fish in the FT well before the Trout are available. Silvers will be available around the time I de-stock the Tilapia (Tilapia will not survive below 10°C, according to what I have read), but I would like to try them both out and I am impatient.
What is the Max water temp for Silvers? My FT only got to around 30° on a couple of days this Summer.

Thanks,
Tony

Max temp is 32 degrees.....

But temps at that end of the scale bring other factors to bear that might kill your fish....

DO is the obvious factor.... then there's TAN and pH......

All three get to be a real juggling act at those temps and there's very little margin for error or time to react....

Then of course you could end up with a storm/cold front moving through suddenly....

Dropping your air temp by 10+ degrees rapidly and your water temp plummeting along with it....

Temp differential will kill fish as well.... particularly if they've been stressed for a period of time immediately before.... and 30+ for a while would certainly be stressing your fish

In one 1000 litre tank i have 3 gold fish 6 in long and 25 silvers to plate size ,In another theres40 silvers 3 to4 in long and 6 trout 4to5 in long since all of these have been here i have had no deaths also i have 40 to50 trout in another container [growing like crazy] these are all using the same water same temps ect atm 15 deg

Here is some info Tony
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... php?t=1405

SP will live down to 10c (or possibly lower), but stop eating around 18c from memory

Ell, very handy table. Thank you.

I had both silvers and trout together last year and didn't have a problem of any fish going missing.

We have had a discussion of mixing fish here: http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... php?t=2215

Tony

I have had Silvers and Trout in the same tank without any problems whatsoever, except that it can be hard getting any food to the Silvers. The minute the pellett hits the water the trout are onto it whilst the poor old Perch are waiting around the bottom for the odd one that the trout misses. Given that the water temps will be falling soon your Perch wont be feeding as much anyway so the Trouts feeding dominace shouldnt be of any concern.

Troutman do you have any trout available yet
I want about 100 fingerlings if so how much.
they will be in the company of silvers golds & a couple of barra
if the golds that were put in for barra food have survived & prosperd & morfed into super goldfish High speed schooling and at times even jumping the trout will. I have a large pond

Slade,
I have sent you a PM.

Elk, my silvers are still feeding reasonably well at 14.5°. They had to get above about 16-17 at the start of summer before they got interested. They basically didn't eat for maybe 4 months, but were happily swimming and hiding under stuff well below 10.

Pretty sure they got above 32° too.
Low stocking densities are key here I think.

...and I'm considering doing SP + trout this winter, but what about catching the trout at the end of winter, swimming around with sp as well? Could end up really stressing the silvers with all the stuffing around.