Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Geoff222, i have noticed that sometimes some fish can be fussy when it comes to taking feed there not used to, one way i have overcome this is to put a fish that feeds well in with ones that dont, have don this with my bream and now they smash floating pellets and send water every where, even the small 5cm bream take floating pellets and it seams they allways have a full belly so i know they are happy.

you can try and mix some food like SP pellets and small bits of prawn and throw it all in together and that might get the ones not eating pellets to get a tast for them.

Thanks grunta.....I'll give that a go

The bream are now eating the SP pellets and seem quite happy. Haven't noticed any growth, but then haven't had them that long. Will be moving them into a BYAP 1000 litre tank this weekend (Thanks to Rupert ).

I'm feeding them around three to four tablespoons of pellets per day split into two feedings. I have ten bream in total, 8 at 15cm and two at 28cm. Is this enough food for them? I'm reluctant to feed more at the moment while my filters are still young.

Cheers....Geoff

sounds plenty geoff, just make sure they are eating it all, as mentioned they are slow growers so you won't notice much, the 15cm ones maybe around 12 - 18 months of eating and the others maybe 6 months, but hand feeding may speed things up, but having them that long you would just about have names for them could you eat your pets I could

They are certainly eating it all.....they hit the surface pretty hard sometimes which is a good show.

As far as eating them goes.....I shant have a problem there! I used to buy two piglets a year, one named Easter and the other named Christmas. The kids are still asking me what happened to them...

They actually grow quite well. I have been very surprised by mine.

me to! mine have been growing enough to notice and it seams they are eating more all the time, may be they are trying to build up some fat for the cooler weather.

think there very cool fish to keep.

Have now moved the Bream into a 1000 litre BYAP tank supplied by Rupert and attached a 100 litre biofilter. The pump is turning over around 2 to 3 thousand litres per hour at 1 metre head, giving plenty of water flow. I don't think I'll be having any problems with low disolved oxygen! The initial problem I had was to much current in the tank, which i fixed after directing the flow from the filter across the centre of the tank instead of around the edge.

The bream look very happy and are eating everything i throw in quick smart. I will post some photos one of these days when I get organised.

I would have guessed SP feed was a little lower in protein than ideal for Bream. I have no evidence to back that up , but Bream are agressive carnivours.

Chappo,

Yeah mate, was wondering that myself. At the moment they're getting the SP pellets as that's all i have, but will have some higher protein pellets when I get the trout. I'd always considered bream omnivores, although I'm sure they eat more animal than plant matter. I ve often caught bream and found small amounts of weed in their gut.

Anyone else have any thoughts ?????

Yeh seen the same in Bream guts myself ,, I think they pick up a lot of weed when getting oysters / mussels / worms etc.

Very popular to catch them using soft platic lures , small bait fish shaped.

The bream will eat meat prefferably. They only go for the vegy stuff if really hungry, and in a tank environment they will actually eat each other first before eating weed.

Just on the growth thing, a Guy at Lake Dumbleyung has Bream in a Dam and got them from fry, 10 years and they are just plate size, they live with yabbies and gambesi fish, the guy reckons they live for 50 years but I agree with him on the growth, in a small aquaculture project I had a couple of years ago they grew to about 4 - 5" in a year and grew very little in the next 2 years, mine had a good supply of worms and gambesi plus a bit of red meat and cheap prawns and shrimp, put them in a dam last year, after 3 years I wouldn't class them as edible size, I think OBO that you being surprised at the growth rate will turn around when they seem to be the same size for the next couple of years

How's everyone going with the cold temps? I have lost about 10 bream in the last few weeks, with tank temps dipping to just below 10. They were all small ones, that dont look like they have grown at all since October.

my Bream have stoped eating and had som larg white spots on them so i added more salt to the tank and they are eating a little and the spots are slowly clearing up, so far.

and i have Bream from 5 - 30 cm and havent lost any so fare.