Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

...meanwhile Les was licking his lips at the thought of producing the first edible specimen. Les, I reckon you should call the monster 'Arnie'!

hey - yeh, I've got a good start with him/her, Murray said he had a couple of nice sized ones also - so Murray keep away from the fish abattoirs until they are of an eating size - the race is on!

I am glad you got the deliveries done Les...kind of you to do all that and thanks for the pellets Roskar, very good.
How big is this one fish Les ?

Damn near 15cm (or more) one flap of his tail and he swam the length of the pool - thorpedo mk11

Great to hear the group buy went well. Les the pressures now on you not to kill Arnie so as to get the first plated aquaponics fish from anyone at that SEQ meet....maybe VB will get tehre first

I think it will be me or Nick.

Duncan we got this all down pat now - Murray found a good contact in that each bag held 50 fish (minimum) and "fingerling" size was like the fishing tall stories - they were thaaaaaaaat big! (and didn't get away)

i will hopefully in the competition for the first to plate size but despite my weekday work, i can see myself not having the heart to eat them. any way I think my biggest at the moment is about 30cm long and i will definately leave them till just before christmas.

Good luck VB may the biggest fish be eaten:)

My new Silvers have settled in well, not one loss so far.
This supplier is pretty good. I had 4 bags of 50 fish delivered in two boxes, I took one box as I was to be left with 100 after the sharing, left the other sealed box for Les to do the "Silver Perch" run.
I did all the right things, floated the two bags on top of the tank for about an hour then opened the bags and introduced some water from my tank, let that settle for about an hour, then I tipped the fish into the tank by running them via a net so I could do an accurate count of the fish.
The first bag of 50 had 64 fish and the second bag of 50 had 60 fish......
So far the Silvers are looking good.
It is only the second day, but my initial impression is that Silvers are much more active than Jades, they rise to the food very enthusiastically. My Jades have never done that.
My Jades tend to spend a lot of time almost motionless in the tank , whereas these Silvers are always on the move.
VB, Steve, you keep both Silvers and Jades ? What are your comparative observations?
Muzza....

Yep Murray, reckon we got close to 60 in our bag as well, my lot would have been the most susceptible due to the extra time to get them to the fish tank plus opening the bag at Andy's but they have all settled in well.

Initially they were a very dark colour (probably stress related) but can see lighter coloured ones appearing now.

p.s. I only counted "Arnie" as one

It would be great if you guys could somehow monitor the amount of feed etc, and come up with some sort of growth rate/ food conversion ratio to compare to each other. Also, I woul like to know how differently each batch grows within the batch ie are there some that don't seem to grow at all, and others that grow heaps? Thanks

Interesting Mon, the 1st morning I put some food in and didn't see much of the SP, went to feed again in the afternoon and had very fat and sluggish goldies - the SP had learnt fast and were way ahead in "the grub stakes" by then.

I am doing what Muzz does and crushes the pellets as some of the SP are too small to swallow them whole at this stage, I was looking at phasing out the goldies ar separating them but they do a good job of cleaning up the scraps (may stay away from Barra tho).

Once the fish settle into a routine will monitor how much I feed them each day

My fish also appear to have settled very quickly and I have been crushing pellets and feeding small amounts 2-3 tomes per day. It would be interesting to see if there are differences in growth rates compared to:

volume of water
stocking density
water quality readings
DO levels
even what we are growing

Perhaps we talk off line to discuss the possibilities...then again we could just compete and see who can get the most fish to 500g by a certain date??

Ok, Andy, Les, I will start accurate records frm today re food etc.

I have lost two, by them jumping out of the tank, I have had a few more do that but I was there to pick them up off the ground.
I have now made up a wire top for the tank, made out of that mouse wire, it has a square of about 10 x 10mm. After fitting that I have heard the occoasional "hit" on the wire from these energetic Silvers.

Murray

Murray, do you have hides for the fish to stay in?