Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

When you call in the shop next time I'll give you some pellets to try on them Nocky. We have what they call semi-floating ones, they slowly sink to the bottom.

No worries joel as mentioned in the other forum (http://www.backyardfarming.com.au/phpbbb/index.php) will come in sunday after the AC/DC concert , will try them out
Better smilies in the other forum as well see

Well thought they were into the mince, but no, they had a small feed for the last 2 days and this afternoon floating in the tank was about as much mince as I gave them in 2 days, they seem to hold it for a while and then cough it up, maybe they are getting what they need out of it but it is far too messy, tried sinking some trout pellets, succeeded in that but reddies not interested in them, one even landed on fish's head and it completely ignored it

Unless you forget after too much headbanging the night before....

Man I can't work these things out, I broke in half a couple of Trout pellets and got them to sink, they haven't been fed for a few days so they ate them half way down, fed more and they took them again and spat them out Got a couple of CD's BSF larvae from freezer and cut them in half threw them in tank, they floated but with in about 30 secs all the reddies had come to the top and swimming around the bits of BSF but didn't eat any it is as if they can sense food but have NFI what to do with it, probably not use to eating different things, they obviously destroy Gambusia so may be a slow process getting them to eat different things, bit like getting kids to eat brussels

Only feeding my 8 reddies about 12 Gambusia once a day - they take them all out in the space of 8-10 seconds. Did put a second lot in once, about 10 minutes after the first and they had only eaten 3-4 after 30 seconds.

Will trial once in the morning and once at night and see how that goes. Gotta find the optimum to get the best out of these things if they're gunna work !

I spent a hell of a lot of time at night last week finding what research I could into them and there is vitrtually nothing. Everything in Aus is focussed on the impact of their introduction and the overseas stuff (where they are native) primarily looks at them as part of a overall ecosystem, and various side subjects to that.

We're definitely dealing with the unknown..... (need some sort of explorer or pioneer icon).

Chilli, they farm them in parts of Europe and also NZ has been doing research into them as an aquaculture prospect so maybe search sites from those countries.

Yes CD appears we are pioneers (best I could do for explorer smiley)
They are confusing little buggers, they appear to eat what they need and then just play with whats left, buggered if I can work them out

Thanks TroutMan - will try and use that as a tighter focus. Surprised about the Europe - not a lot turned up last week.


Yeah, I think that is going to be our learning curve ! Barra will eat anything that moves, trout will eat anything that looks like it moved or may move one day, SP will eat anything that has some salad with it, Reddies ....... ?

CD if you find some info pass it onto me, but I have been looking for ages and like you only find out the damage they cause, haven't been able to find any oversea's info either except for possibly one site that had a picture of one but was in a foreign language

hi guys, i have kept redi's many times over the past 20 odd years and i have kept a few in my aquaponic system but i lost them this summer, i think the water just got to warm for them, low to mid 30's.

one way i used to feed my reds was with fish scraps, like trimings off filets from fish i would catch and or white or blue bait and some times i would catch a heep of small yabbies from the farm dams that had loads of small ones and freez them and feed them a small handfull at a time every other day and they cant resist live worms as you would know.

i kept one in an aquarium once that would take corn cernls off the bottom, one reason i tried this was because i was reading an english fishing book once that said that corn and bread could be used as bait for redfin or english perch.

the redis i lost this year loved river prawns by the way, they would snatch them from just below the serface so any bait i had left over from a brim sesion went to the reds rather than feeding the brim in the swan river.

good luck guys.

Grunta - thanks mate - that fits reasonably well with what we know.

Hey, just read in NZ Aquaculture magazine;

"On April 1, 2009, two leading New Zealand experts on the farming of redfin perch, Paul Decker and Dr Tagried Kurwie of Mahurangi Technical Institute in Warkworth made presentations to a conference on farming this species in Collie, WA."

What the ??? Anyone else know about this ?

They were looking to grow them at the Ngalang Boodja Aquafarm which received $350,000 from the WA Govt Coal Futures Group. Troy Buswell opened the place early last year.

Yep, Mahurangi Research Institute... and Paul Decker.... are New Zealands leading aquaculture institute and researchers...

Here's the full article...

http://www.mti.net.nz/news.cfm?itemId=7 ... 95F72BC936

And for some good info... read pages 58 - 66...

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodivers ... e-fish.pdf

And of course there's the thread... viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4028

And see page 2 of this article for further on NZ redfin trials...

http://www.greatbayaquaculture.com/medi ... ryIntl.pdf

In fact, why don't you write to MTI... and ask for info regarding feed etc, especially as an aquaculture fish??