Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have set up a 500L heated nursery tank for Barra and have added fingerlings on the weekend. I have not had Barra before and I am still a newbie to the whole thing.
I am keen to get info from others on the forum that have kept Barra from fingerling size to maturity (well to dinner plate size anyway ).

I have read VegieBoy's thread which is a great reference point but have not seen much else. I have Trout in my main system and after watching them the Barra seem lifeless. They huddle in groups and move around very little. Despite only having the fish for a couple of days I have been wittnessing odd behaviour where the occasional fish flys around the tank smashing into the sides and then swimming upside down. When this is all over they drift around the tank as if they are dead. I have removed a couple of these and placed them into a bucket to watch them. After a few minutes they right themselves and resume swimming normally. I have returned them to the tank and they swim off as if nothing has happened.

Is this just part of the transport shock and acclimatisation or do I have a water issue ?

The details :
500 L tank (Grow bed size ) heated to 24 - 25 Deg
Biofilter
PH - 7.0
Ammo - 0.25
Nitrite - trace
Nitrate - 0

Any help or comments appreciated

Try to disturb the fish as little as possible... Barra can be quite "flighty".... and smashing themselves into the side of the tank, probably results in concussion...

I remember Monya had a few upside barra, I dont think he ever found out why but
i do remember they tasted good.

Do your Barra have that stress line down their noises ??? If they do give them some more time to adjust.

When my barra first got to my tank ( they where 2 cm in length ) once they all come good again, they where way cool in feeding at that age. They would school and follow me around the tank

Now they are bigger, they dart into the side of the tank if they are spooked. Before we could hand feed them. Now we stand back and through floating pellets.

What are you feeding them at this stage ??

I have added a few pic's....I love them at this size

Hi Jessy,
I wasnt aware that was a stress line on their nose and yes they all have it. I have suffered my first deaths today with 4 floaters this afternoon. I am expecting more as there are still a couple doing the mad smash and crash around the tank when I was working on the tank tonight. I am forced to do some water changes at the moment as the Ammo has risen to 2
I am trying to feed them with 2mm sinking pellets but they do not seem very interested and I am removing a lot of uneaten food each day.
The biggest one at the bottom of the pic was 125mm and the top one about 90mm
It seems to be all the bigger ones that are the problem

yep... try pilchards....and just leave them alone for the time being....they should come good...they are a hearty fish

Thanks Jessy
How resilient are they to the high ammonia ?

I am tempted to just leave them for a couple of days but I dont want to check and find half of them floating because I didnt test the water and clean up the uneaten food.

Stop feeding....

You shouldn't be feeding with an ammonia level of 2....

Salt your tank to at least 1ppt... and leave the fish alone for a day or two...

They should eat from your hand once they are aclimitised to the water parameters......

i always checked the water as often as possible with new fish .....always wanted to be onto the next problem and there is always one

Well another 4 dead today for a total of 8
I have cleaned the tank of all the remaining uneaten food, salted to 1ppt and added some more air stones. Covers have gone back on the tank and I will now leave them alone for the next couple of days.
About 20% of them are showing signs of losing the stress lines on their head so fingers crossed.

Sorry to hear about your fish deaths.

How many barra fingerlings do you have in the 500L "growbed" tank?
I presume the nursery system is not cycled yet, hence the high ammonia??

By the way, where did you get your barra fingerlings and for how much??

Hey Ivan
I bought 50 fingerlings from Golden Ponds at $3 each
Pretty pricey but I dont know of anyone else who is selling them. Freo Tafe have only larger fish around the 250 - 300 gram size that work out to be about $5 a fish.
I ordered 50 but the count was generous as I ended up with 58. So with the deaths I am at my starting point so fingers crossed from here on. And yes you are right the system was not cycled Just too impatient I guess

Hmm... Yes $3 for that size fingerling is rather pricey...

What are you using as the biofilter?? Something you put together?? Using gravel?? It will help if you use some gravel from your partially cycled system or chuck some worm castings into your biofilter or do both... I think
the worm casting is helping my 2nd system cycled a bit faster.

Just remember the ammonia, pH and temperature table, since you are heating the tank, ammonia
becomes more toxic at the same pH.

Good luck.

Hi there.....
I am an aussie living in Brunei (Hot-wet tropical Borneo) and have been doin g AP for over two years now. I keep Tilapia, Koi and more recently Barramundi.

I bought about 50 3 inch fingerlings back in march this year and now starting to eat good healthy plate sized Barra, some now getting bigger and around 1 Kg.

I lost about twenty four quite early, about one month. Ph swing and dirty water, lack of O2 killed them but only about half. Some were doing what you described. That is, swimming erratically and eventually belly up.

Since then I have notched up the air pump to a 12 outlet pond sized pump. I have a 1000 litre plastic tank. I also added better filtration and always make sure water is clean and DO NOT OVERFEED the fish.

What I have learned about Barra is that they love lots of air in the water and they love clean water. They are amazing when they feed and slap the water. They are easy to net as they swim quite slowly. They will jump out of the water at feed time and almost take pellets from my hand. They have an incredible growth rate. From fingerling to one kilo in under 12 months.

You mentioned a water temp. of 24 C. This sounds a bit cool as Barra are a tropical fish and probably will do better in 28 - 30 degrees. My water is usually at that temp. no heating required. Also, how stable is your water temp.? I would guess they may be sensitive at 24 and their growth will be slower.

I have never seen Barra hit the sides of the tank or dart about. My Tilapia do this a lot and I have Koi fish that tend to be very shy and touchy and will hit the sides of the tank.

All my fish have been known to leap out of the tank. I have lost a few fish when I haven't covered my tanks. Barra only seem to leap when food is about.

Good luck. Barra are a great eating fish with phenomenal growth rate.

Hi there Dave and welcome to the forum

One of the most recent deaths was a jumper but the rest I believe was just stress related. My biggest concern is the ammonia level at the moment. I am trying to leave them alone as much as possible but if the ammo continues to be high I might have to do more water changes. Although this lowers the ammo it swings the PH around.

My main fish tank out side has Trout in it at the moment and the water temp is still around the 16 deg mark so it will be some months yet before the Barra get into the big tank.

Once again welcome to the forum and I hope to see you post some pics and tell us about your system in the Members Systems thread.