Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was just watching the ABC midday news and one of their feature bits was on Asian Carp in the Mississippi River. I couldn't find the exact link to the story, but here is some similar footage to that shown.
"Flying" Asian carp in the Mississippi River (halfway down the page)

In the news piece the reporter was in a boat travelling up the river. Fish were leaping into the air and into the boat (with the usual wishful fish jokes), but as they were going along he got slammed by two 3 foot long fish (at different times) but they nearly knocked him down.

Pesky pest species

They are tho, aren't they! I think we should make more of an effort to eat them. The Asians do & it tastes delicious the way they cook it! mmm fish.

That was brilliant, thanks for that Jaymie, as I'm a few hours behind over here, I had time to go and turn the tellie on here and watch it.. Quite incredible that there were so many..

i dont have real player, but youtube search produced this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS7zkTnQVaM

not sure if its the same story, but same issue

i reckon they would be a good source of protien and fish meal for fish feed though....

far out that was hilarious. one poor guy copped one in the family jewels.

lol, yeah i saw that bit..Ouch

Part 2 when they put the current in the water...Dang!! the water boils with hundreds of jumping carp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ChwJiKKBdA&NR=1

This seems to be the same as what we call european carp...
http://www.murrayriver.com.au/fishing/carp.htm

has ANYBODY thought about growing these suckers? I keep getting told that they taste alright if they're not eating mud...and I wouldn't feed them mud...

goldies are tough, carp should be tougher, and grow bigger, with less sentimental value

you're kidding, yeh? dont know about the other states but here there is like a 10K fine for returning a live one to the water once caught, let alone breeding them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyPaxIpoyM0&NR=1

Check this out for sports fishing carp :-) would be great fun :-)

is that all? I think they should also be hanged

Okay, thought so
Wasn't thinking of breeding, more like grab some from the river and throw in the system...sort of like goldfish but without the size limit . I expect this would still be very very illegal.

Is it too late to hang whoever introduced them?

I think you might be OK Steem, you can't return a caught fish to the river but you should be able to put it in a bucket of water and take it home. It would be a cheep way to get some very large fish to cycle or maintain a system.

not here. the fine pretty much goes for being in possesion of a live specimin........i think.

I can get 2 to 3 foot long monsters in the local creek but I think they would scare the goldfish.

I used to hunt carp with a bow in the USA. Great fun. Also, you can fish for them from the bank using dough balls.

For some reason, North Americans despise the idea of eating carp. Probably because they don't know how to prepare the meat. I have a book on raising fish in aquaculture and they recommend carp as a species.

By the way, I have seen goldfish swimming in rivers up to 4 or so lbs as well. I don't know if someone released it, flushed it down a toliet or it was the result of a flooded home. All I know is that any exotic will end up in the water given enough time. The only way to prevent it is no exotics that can survive the winter.

What is interesting is that here in the tropics we have a lot less problems with exotics than up there. Most of the wildlife / plants from other parts of the world are robust enough to survive the aggressive tropical environment. As one book put it - everywhere else, the plants and animals fight the climate - here, they fight each other since the climate is so good.

One of my motivations for aguaponia is that I can't grow tomatoes without lifting them out of the soil. The nematodes and fungus are way to aggressive.