Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,

I stocked my dam with 100 silver and 100 jade perch last October. I pellet fed them for the first couple of months and they readily took the food from the surface. I reduced the pellet feeding as my dam had a good amount of natural food for the fish and eventually left them to there own devices. Now a few months on I have not seem head nor tale of these fish. I have tried using pellets again. The first pack I purchased were sinking pellets so I put the fact to not seeing the fish down to them not having to come to the surface. I have now purchased floating pellets the exact same pellets I had them on when I introduced them to my dam and still nothing. I have tried a worm on light tackle and al sorts of different bates and I have had nothing. I have caught some eel which I have relocated to a local creek but I doubt they would have eaten all the fish especially as they have been rapidly wihile eating pellets. I know birds would have taken a few but 40% of the dam was covered in lily pads over the summer so they had plenty of places to hide. Any thoughts on if they are still in there or have I made some error along the way?

Hi and welcome to the forum. Not really Aquaponics but someone here might know the answer. I'm not sure what's going on but it sounds unlikely that you've had a fish kill (figuring you go there regularly and haven't seen any dead fish) and I also doubt predators would have cleaned them totally out (but herons and cormorants are pretty good at getting fish). I'd keep fishing

Heron and other water birds, goannas, turtles, and depending on the size of the fish, even snakes will take them. Did you build the dam, or was it already there?... If so, there may have already been resident fish in there, there may be a big Murray cod or two in there, or similar.

This was an interesting read - especially the part that say a bird can catch up to 150 fish per hour

https://lawsoffishing.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/the-origin-of-cormorant-fishing/

Thanks for you replies. The Dam has been there for years. I have only been at this property for 1 year but the previous owner informed me the dam was not stocked. It's possible that there could be a couple of big fish in there but I doubt it. Birds most definitely could have taken some but as there is a lot of small natives still swimming around in the shallows I would have expected some perch to survive. I'm hoping they are just off the feed and hiding in the under the lily pads. Has anyone had any experience of catching these fish at this age? The would be about 8 months old now.

Don't be surprised that you will have marron in your dam.