Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Mate, just by this comment it shows you have no idea how to breed fish. Aquarium, tropical or natives. What if you need to simulate flooding? River rapids? Cold temps? Prestine water? Constant flowing waters?

My tropical breeding tank is a 2 foot tank with a 200 watt heater and $2000 filter. What size and what cost do you think a silver perch breeding setup requires?

While "rising water levels" are one of the natural cues that trigger ovulation... it's not the only one...

Water temperature and daylight length are others...

Then there's the viability of the broodstock/eggs themselves... and the narrow window for hormone stimulation...

And the viability/percentage surviviability of egg development... and fry growth... and etc etc...

Unless you know exactly what to do... and how to do it.... you might as well just throw money into a bucket...

There is an old saying in wine making

"How do you make a small fortune in wine making? You start with a large one!"

when i said "what else do you have to consider in breeding a silver perch compared to a ie a cichlid?" i meant more, a fish is still a fish.

you don't need rapid river floods though. have a read of

Rowland SJ (2008) Review of aquaculture research and development of the Australian freshwater fish silver perch (Bidyanus bidyanus Mitchell). Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 39(6), in press.

"silver perch undergo normal gonodal development and spwan naturally in earthen ponds at water temperatures above 23 C providing that there is an accompanying raise in water levels". (Roland, 2008).

this review goes on to say the importance of breeding the fish...

"the threatened status of silver perch has implications for commercial aquaculture and a shortage of brood fish is imminent unless silver perch are domesticated on commercial farms" (Roland, 2008).

What filter did you buy for $2000 by the way?

I don't think it's an easy thing to do, I've seen the experiences Monya has had, and I've spoken at great lengths to Carl who has bread them in the past, and Troutman with his experiences in breading silvers recently. And I'm glad I'm not involved in breeding silvers....

Yeah, if it was easy... everyone would be doing it....

And it would have been posted on the forum here a couple of years ago...

I think its a scale of economics. For the average AP person its just not worth the time or expense involved to just try and get 100 or so fish at the end. You really have to do it on a large scale to make all the effort worth your while. Raising the larvae in ponds helps lessen the work load somewhat as you dont have to keep hatching out artemia every day for a couple of months. I tell you now if I didnt have ponds I wouldnt be doing it as it is just too time consuming!

how big are your ponds trout man? I wonder if they are scalable to some degree... You do like 100,000 fingerlings at a time? or...? what do you find the most time consuming part?

Do a search for Fluval or Eheim.

Again, you not going to breed natives in a 4 foot tank.

If you had the plans and setup ideas to breed the fish I would not be so skeptical. But all I have heard from this thread is how easy this and how easy that.

I am just saying for you to do your research and think it through and actually have solutions. Not just big words and big boasts.

The usual commercial aquaculture pond is about 1000m2 but mine are only about half that size.
A 1kg fish usually produces around 125 000 eggs but the amount of fry you get to survive will only be a fraction of that if all goes well.
There are so many things that can and do go wrong, its all a matter of getting the timing right in a lot of different variables which isnt easy to do.
It takes about a week from when the fish spawn until the eggs hatch and the larvae are put into the ponds. Its a full on week and it all needs constant monitoring. As Rup said you really need to learn how to do it at an aquaculture course as its something you really need to learn from hands on experience.

Here's a few pics of Silver Perch hormone inducement...

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