Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Do you know an other species, which i can breed in my aquarium, and use the fingerlings for aquaponic outdoor ?
I know Tilapia already, do you know some others ?
The alternate is trout with 50cent per fish.


Kind regards
Dom

I dont know any others. I would go for the trout they are proven to be good in aquaponics and thats a good price.

I think about crappie, but they should grow slowly also.
Ok i'll search for an other fish, but for the next saison i'll try trout.

Do you know if this kind of "panfish" will reach his 30cm or although stay slower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbreast_sunfish

30 cm is the max recorded size according to the link. However I doubt that it would be a good fish for aquaculture. There are a lot of fish out there that are good to eat but for some reason are not grown in aquaculture systems. Usually it is one of 4 things. They grow too slow, they are too territorial, they don't breed well in captivity or there is a better fish out there that fills the spot they would fit in. In the case of sunfish Bluegill ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegill) usually fills that spot. But even Bluegill is not really raised for eating, mostly for stocking in ponds as a sport fish or forage for larger fish.

The sun fish are very skittish they die if you bump the tank too hard. Getting them to breed I doubt it.

Where I live in the US the sunfish is the first fish you learn to catch as a kid. They are an exceptional food fish, but they are going to take several years to grow to 30cm. Harvest size is going to be closer to 12-15cm. There are a couple of commercial enterprises in the US trying to grow them in recirculating aquaculture.

I don't have any practical experience with aquaponics yet, but I doubt they would be a good choice of fish to start with. If you are not easily deterred here is a link to an aquaculture guide for sunfish: http://www.ncrac.org/Topics/Cultureguide2002.htm. It is a free download and while it has zero information about aquaponics, it has a lot of information about sunfish.

If you must have a sunfish for your system, I would suggest coppernose bluegill over pumpkinseed sunfish or standard/northern bluegill. They grow faster and bigger, though they require slightly higher temps during the winter. They are a southern subspecies of the bluegill. I also know of many people who have had issues with Georgia Giants, which are actually just a fancy marketing name for a hybrid sunfish (a cross between a bluegill and a green sunfish). Note that Georgia Giants/hybrid sunfish will not breed true, and the few offspring you'll get are typically inferior fish.

How about yellow perch?

Hello kellenw,

thanks for your reply.
I don't know where i can get coppernose bluegill.
I'm from Germany and pumpkinseeds are popular in fishcenters.

I can get redfins but they grow slowly too, isn't it ?
Also i think the yellow perch grow slowly like the same family.


Dom

Tiggar,

Coppernose bluegill may be difficult to find outside of the United States. I'm sorry, I should have looked at your location prior to recommending them. If you could find them locally, they would be an excellent choice however.

Feed trained Yellow Perch (Perca flavescens) and Redfin Perch (Perca fluviatilis) grow about 1.5% per day at their ideal temperature of 24c deg (75f deg), and can reach harvest size in about one year. Females grow much faster and larger than males, so some people cull out males early during growout or buy all female stock. With all female stock, the fish will grow even faster since they are not focusing any energy on reproduction.

Dom,

What are your summer water temperatures? if you had a pond outside how deep would it freeze in winter? Could you have a small greenhouse over the pond to keep it less frozen?

What is the species of catfish that you are calling brown catfish?

Sorry for so many questions..

I don't have a pond, i've a selfmade greenhouse with a selfmade tank with 1000L (250x60x67cm)
The name of the catfish is Ameiurus nebulosus.

I don't know yet who deep the water will froze.
The tank is leaved in the earth until 3cm of the earth surface.


Kind regards
Dom

I see those catfish as growing to about 30cm, which should be good if you can get them reasonably inexpensively. I also like channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) since they are tasty and hardy, can handle hot or cold water, and live for years growing larger and larger. TCLynx just harvested one that weighed 5kg at about 2.5 years of age.

Trout might survive the summer and would certainly survive the winter, possibly with a little heat to prevent your system from freezing over. If they will survive your summer and winter then by all means grow trout as they are entertaining and tasty.

For now I would use carp or goldfish. I think they are available to you, are cheap, grow large, will probably taste good if given good food and kept in clean water, and can handle living under ice for the winter.



Actually, if I were you, I would get about ten of each species that I wanted to try that might be compatible, toss them in, and see what happens. Mortality is likely, but how many years do you have to test things? I have trout, goldfish, tilapia, and catfish mixed into 5 different containers in four different systems! Anyway, have fun!

All Lepomis are fiesty at breeding time, not hard to breed in an aquarium but not easy, need hiding places, a trio only, with lots of refuge for the females.

Bluegills are larger then pumpkinseeds/sunfish, they are at the upper end of size in the family.

They are an interesting family to keep in a temperate aquarium, not for beginners, temperament is similar to many rift lake cichlids. Koi/carp are much easier to breed. Trout are great if you have a chiller, even average home temps are too high for most species. Breeding them is best done artificially, stripping eggs and milt, and then the mixing, hardening and incubating of eggs, you can buy trout eggs commercially about now. Brook and Cutthroat are both beautiful and becoming threatened throughout their ranges.

The yellow perch would be an excellent alternative to the sunfish, both would take 2 years but the perch make better eating, although many folks prefer sunfish.

Good luck, dont hesitate to ask more questions.

I've decided to use european carp.
The growth is ok, i think.
What can you tell me about breeding carp?
I read that carp need 3-5 years until they're able to breed.
And i need a pond.
I've started building a 20k liter pond in my garden.
That should be ok for some carp, and i can use the pond although for aquaponic with trout over the year. :-)
Or would carp eat fingerlings too?