Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

have contacted MTI, Rupe kicking our arse about reddies and you have your own secret thread

The feeding saga continues, fed them some 2mm floating pellets that I feed gold fish, they swam up to surface within 20 secs and ate the lot they obviously can sense the food, strange though they won't eat trout pellets

EB gave me some slow sinking smaller pellets, they are sorta interested in them but will be a training process, we have a plague of little hairy caterpillars so tried a couple of those, 5 secs they were all up the top fighting over them, so gave another couple same deal, there is a couple of bigger ones in the mob, they seem to stop the smaller ones eating, tried another couple and the smaller ones came up and chased by bigger ones, the bigger ones that had fed already didn't even eat another, just stopped the small ones eating, strange but maybe protecting food source, it may take a while for them to get use to regular feeding and food on tap, I have a small back up tank ready for holding gambusia, but still want to try alternative stuff, the BSF larvae are great they love them, just can't find any in Narrogin

nocky, have you tried getting some garden worms (or composting worms) and then chopping them up with the pellets? I had some murray cod that went off their feed when I got them. tried them with worm mush and pellets. had them in the pellets in a week. True they were on them before, but now they hit them hard and even come to the surface to feed on floating pellets! Just my thoughts. Good luck in anycase.

Hay Nocky, just a thought, you could try sprying the trout pellets with fish oil, i knew some one that used to bread SP years ago and when they would harvest the fingerlings from the starter ponds they would some times have trouble getting them on pellets but spraying the pellets with fish oil did the trick, you could posibly try the good quality stuff from a tackel shop?

Have tried worms quachy, they love them but have only got a can o worms farm and they would eat me out quick, grunta I have some oil, will try, was thinking pellets maybe to big but they can eat a whole gambusia or caterpillar
I think they know pellets are there as caterpillars stay on surface and reddies come up in a few seconds, may just setup to keep a weeks supply of gams, but CD is using those and for the sake of science want to get them on something different, other than yabbies and Pygmy Perch

Maybe try giving them less choices Nocky..Try those pellets and give them only that for a couple of weeks. I reckon they will soon get stuck into them when thats all they get.. As you say, bit of a training project...

Might be a different story if you get to train them from very young. A bit like our small Silvers, they started off rather scared of people, now they come scooting across the surface of the tank when they see someone coming... Faye was training them to go round and round in circles following her finger.

Like you Joel

Yes may starve them for a while, tried the fish oil soaking and only mild interest, I think they are waiting for the Gambusia again, but none coming after the last massacre

Mine are currently on 80% Gambusia and 20% worms. I'm only using the male Gambusia at the moment to give as many females as possible the chance to breed first. Also the males are smaller and I'm not sure the reddies are big enough to swallow the females yet.

Gambusia and worms last less than 10 seconds once they hit the water.

I have another thought, tanks have glass shrimp in, never see them but maybe reddies are feeding on those

one way i used to feed my reds was at this time of year when some of the iragation ditches are drying up i would catch litrely thousands of gambusea and freeze them like a pack of bait, like lay them out flat in the a plastic bag, makes it easier to break some off at feeding time and throw in tank, they defrost pretty quickly and the reds will eat them no probs, and this meathod is much easier than trying to bread / keep food fish.

glass shrimp were one of the best baits for reds, put two on a hook alive with there under sides facing each other and you could see the reds come out of there hidi holes to get them.

i have lost 50mm reds from eating to many gambusias, they can and some times will gorg them selvs untill they can hardly move and it can kill them.

they are a great fish, hope you guys have a lot of luck with them and if you manage to breed them i would love to get some little ones, i tried to catch some little ones a few months back but they were way to fast for me!

Thanks Grunta - good to know. I've been rationing mine fairly strictly, but only to avoid the problem Nocky has had with the reddies beating the snot out of anything they didn't eat straight away and the dead gambusias having a deleterious effect on water quality.

G'day Nocky, just a thought up or down here in the concrete jungle the supermarkets through out heaps of fish when it has reached it's used by date. They are not usually allowed to let people have it due to health regulations. But maybe if you go and ask at the local shops they may be able to give you sum. Especially if you show them the article you where in, to explain what you want to use it for. Then you can cut that up and feed to the Redfin.
Rawprawn

Thanks RP, feed supply isn't the problem, I have access to literally millions of Gambusia which CD has witnessed, I have a worm farm also, what we are doing is experimenting with different foods, CD has the easy option and I am trying to get them on pellets, but now only just remembering the glass shrimp I have thought they maybe onto those and is why they appear not to eat or just play with food, the plan is to see if we can grow them out faster in a AP system and make use of a readily available supply of fish, my problem in Narrogin is once trout has finished weather doesn't suit summer fish as well as Perth, (although this year is a definite exception)
Grunta I can see that happening, I through 500 or so Gams in tank thinking they would last a couple of weeks, 12 fish demolished the lot in less than 8 hours, the ones they didn't eat they just mashed up or killed them with one bite

Didn't feed the reddies Monday, so they were pretty hungry when I got home last night.

Had them eating BSF larvae throwing one or two in at a time and allowing them to sink. The sinking takes a while, but as I have a lot of air into the tank, the water eddies around and sucks them down.