Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone,

this season is my first attempt at growing trout in my AP system.

What I'm intrested in is how many of us have grown rainbows because we are told it's the best option?

Is this through personal experience or are we just on some bandwagon?

Why don't more people grow browns when they are better suited to warmer waters?

I just confused about some of the knowledge/reports on trout that were written for colder climates and have just been transferred to Australia.

There are reports done in Australia [FISHERIES RESEARCH REPORT NO. 130, 2001] that show brown trout can handle much higher water temps than generally accepted by cooler climate operators/knowledge.

I myself have seen again and again brown and rainbow trout living and breeding in water that are outside the norm accepted ranges.

These trout have adapted to the warmer waters. It does not mean you can get a trout from cold waters and put it in warm water and expect it to survive because it will not.

So the ideas is there are trout out there that are quite happy in warmer waters as long as their food and oxygen requirements are met.

I purchased 50 brown trout from Ballarat and have introduced them to my sump tank.

On the first night I had 10 die due to lack of air [I run my air 24/7, system pump off at night] from poor quality air stones.

After I replaced the four air stones with better quality and bigger size units no more trout have died.

The trout are swimming around and feeding as normal and the water temp is 23 deg C. These trout being from Ballarat would have been bred in colder waters and so should not like my warmer sump tank.

It could be said the reason for the 10 trout deaths was shock at the water temp but I'm quite sure it was oxygen.

My plan is to map the progress of my trout with daily temp checks over the normal growing period or season with several weigh samples included.

I would like to compare with other on this forum who are intrested in expanding our knowledge on trout in AP.

If anyone is intrested in adding their experiences and data to this please feel free to do so

God bless froggo.

Froggo
Good to see you giving the Browns a try. From my experience they are a much slower growing fish than the Rainbow. When it comes to Trout you are generally after a quick grow out before summer water temperatures get to hot for them. You can easily get a Rainbow Trout to 1kg by the end of December but I doubt you would get a Brown to 500gms over the same period, I think mine only got to about 350gms from memory. As far as taste goes I cant tell any difference between the two so why grow a fish that will only grow to half the size in the same time?? To be commercially viable all trout farms grow Rainbows for the food market. The Brown Trout are best used for recreational fishing as they live for twice as long and can often grow bigger, they are also a much more intelligent fish so generally harder to catch.
There seems to be some conjecture as to which species can handle warmer water temps though I havent noticed any significant differences between the two.

From my experience Trout are happy and will keep feeding up to 24C, once the temps get up to 27C you can tell they are stressed though they will still survive depending on the time held at these temperatures. In saying that though I have trout in my dams that will feed at the surface in 28C waters but after feeding they quickly return to the cooler depths.

We in the west talk about a managed and grown Rainbow trout.
For local conditions
Apparently they handle warmer water than the east coast trout.

26 was as far as I pushed mine, water quality wasnt the best at times either.

Aeration is the key!

Same here OBO plus a bit 27c...
but back down to 19 in a few hours.

Hi Troutman,

yeh the browns are slower but we should be able to keep them going much longer than rainbows.

The origin of rainbows v's browns is the reason for their slight temp diff. As I also said they have adapted to the conditions here when they are bred and raised in warmer water.

I was encouraged by the brown that F&F had mixed with his rainbows. What was intresting about this was everyone thought it was a good fish and the size was ok.

F&F can you varify if it was on par with the rainbows in growth?

Going on brown trouts normal characteristics it was culled before it physically needed to be. Brown trout can handle up to 29 deg C and still feed and grow. While this is outside their comfortable temp range the fact does not change they survive.

I don't know what the max water temp my system will get too during summer but I'm keen to try and keep browns year round as a species and experiment.

Browns also respond to food size and will grow much quicker and bigger depending on the food avaliable. This may occur with rainbows but I'm not aware of it.

I'm keen to try this out come next spring summer when I will add live shrimp and yabbies to the trouts diet to encourage increased growth.

That's if they are still kickin by then

I'm intrested also in what some people have said about the taste of rainbows. Rainbows are salmon and have the salmon taste. Farmed rainbows that I've tasted are much more salmon like than the wild ones I catch here. I know trout are very much a product of their diet and change dramatically in flavour and flesh color.

Does anyone else think the browns they have grown taste the same as rainbows?

God bless froggo

Actually Brown Trout (Salmo Trutta) are more closely related to the Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar) which is the Tasmanian Salmon that you find in the shops. Rainbows (onchorynchus mykiss) are related to the western pacific salmons which in australia are more commonly found in cans.

If this was the case, WA with its hotter summers, would have plenty of Brown Trout in its rivers but instead Rainbows are far more prolific over here and Browns seem to only survive in a few streams. Good luck with it and I hope you can get them thru next summer ok.

Hi Froggo I got 25 rainbows in one tank and 25 browns in the other one all in the same system so will see which are the best rainbows seem to feed on the top and browns feed on the bottom, as far as taste last years rainbows were the best trout i have eaten and i have had them from every wear.
Cheers Jim. quote="froggo"]Hi everyone,

this season is my first attempt at growing trout in my AP system.

What I'm intrested in is how many of us have grown rainbows because we are told it's the best option?

Is this through personal experience or are we just on some bandwagon?

Why don't more people grow browns when they are better suited to warmer waters?

I just confused about some of the knowledge/reports on trout that were written for colder climates and have just been transferred to Australia.

There are reports done in Australia [FISHERIES RESEARCH REPORT NO. 130, 2001] that show brown trout can handle much higher water temps than generally accepted by cooler climate operators/knowledge.

I myself have seen again and again brown and rainbow trout living and breeding in water that are outside the norm accepted ranges.

These trout have adapted to the warmer waters. It does not mean you can get a trout from cold waters and put it in warm water and expect it to survive because it will not.

So the ideas is there are trout out there that are quite happy in warmer waters as long as their food and oxygen requirements are met.

I purchased 50 brown trout from Ballarat and have introduced them to my sump tank.

On the first night I had 10 die due to lack of air [I run my air 24/7, system pump off at night] from poor quality air stones.

After I replaced the four air stones with better quality and bigger size units no more trout have died.

The trout are swimming around and feeding as normal and the water temp is 23 deg C. These trout being from Ballarat would have been bred in colder waters and so should not like my warmer sump tank.

It could be said the reason for the 10 trout deaths was shock at the water temp but I'm quite sure it was oxygen.

My plan is to map the progress of my trout with daily temp checks over the normal growing period or season with several weigh samples included.

I would like to compare with other on this forum who are intrested in expanding our knowledge on trout in AP.

If anyone is intrested in adding their experiences and data to this please feel free to do so

God bless froggo.[/quote]

Sounds like a good experiment Jim and I'll look forward to hearing your results later in the year.

Hi troutman,

the reason WA trout are mostly rainbows is simply they were easier for the WA hatcheries to breed.

The rivers/lakes in WA provide little to no gravel beds for redds/natural populations so the trout must be stocked.

The rainbow genes pool used since 1945 for breeding in WA has developed a warmer water tolerance than other strains ie/ the trout from Tas died at WA water temps.

WA stopped getting fry from the eastern states and Tas in 1991 to stop diseases being introduced.

The WA fisheries outline their trout policies and stocking numbers and other intresting findings in this report http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/mp/mp156/fmp156.pdf

WA fisheries have also published a report detailing tests on brown trout and their ability to survive higher water temps than rainbows [FISHERIES RESEARCH REPORT NO. 130, 2001]

I believe the brown trout here in North Vic irrigation system have also adapted to the warmer water as they can freely breed producing tolerance to their conditions.

I have no idea what my systems max temp is going to be next summer but If I can keep the water temp under 29 deg C I believe I have a good chance of keeping brown trout alive.

God bless froggo.

I thought the errant fish that F&F had mixed with the Trout was a Silver Perch?

Hi OBO,

no way is that a silver, I could not believe anyone even suggested that. Check out the shots again on page 100 of F&F thread.

It's a trout without a doubt. It's hard to tell 100% if it's a brown from the photo but to me the lack of the rainbows spots is unusual, the tail is straighter where rainbows have a deeper fork.

Brown trout to me,

God bless froggo.

Both those fish are definately Rainbows.

True, Rainbows are easier to breed in that the young seem to have a better survival rate in the warmer waters over here.


This is true in many cases but there are several streams and Dams with self supporting populations of both Rainbow and Brown Trout.


I cant see any such thing in that report, in fact if you look on page 4 second paragraph it says the exact opposite.

the dury it still out on that one
Check out page 107 of my system all these rainbows and one other were all bought as rainbows grow out was from march to the following jan