Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I had tried feeding my perch different green foods in the past, by crunching bits of leaf into balls and chucking them into the tank. With this method I had limited success.

Spurred on by Murray's habit of feeding lettuce leaves to his perch, I have been throwing some whole leaves from different plants into the tank to see what is eaten over a 24 hour or so period. The leaves tend to float, so it is easy to tell what has been eaten.

So far I can report that the fish have eaten silverbeet, leaf amaranth, lettuce and kale. These are the only plants I have tried.

It would appear that kale is their favourite. This is the only one that I actually witnessed the fish rising to eat. The big silver perch in particular seemed to like it. Don't get me wrong, it is not like pellets where they all rise to have a go, but some of the perch were definitelly eating it within minutes of throwing it in.

Just for interest, a couple of other things I have done is:

- throw in a whole broad-ripple current tomato. These are yellow and about the size of a 5 cent piece. The perch imediatelly went for it and ate it within 30 second or so (not whole). They also ate a red cherry tomato tha6t I had thrown in after ripping in half.
- this arvo I threw in a comfrey leaf, sill see if any has been eaten in the morning.

I have also fed the fish, worms, grasshoppers, grubs and silkworms.

What are others doing to add some variety - particularly those with omnivores.

Our rainbows and spangles have tried duckweed (they like), handfuls of torn up guinea grass (they ate some but not all), little freshwater prawns(only one or two survived the first couple of days). Termites are a bit of a favourite at the moment, also green ants. Jaymie put in some "whirlygig" beetles but they all vanished within a day. Assumed they'd been eaten.
Will try more things when the "real" fish get here.

AM should try the green ants with his barra, they might go really well.

I chuck in most of the waste veg. material from my growbeds into the tanks for the marron and yabbies, as it breaks down they consume it. My goldfish too will take lettuce, broccoli leaves, just about anything really. I have even been fishing out the green snot-like algae from my vallis tank and feeding that to the goldies, like you say, they don't go crazy over it like when being fed but it gets eaten over the course of a few days.

Has anyone tried feeding sprouted seeds to their fish? I was thinking that tilapia might really like sprouted wheat, and I think I can get food grade wheat fairly cheaply. Then it's just a matter of soaking the wheat seeds for a few days until they begin to sprout. Should be fairly nutritious, too. Comments?

Sounds like a pretty good idea, Janet. What nutritional value would wheat have for the fish. Is there another redily available plant with more trace elements for both the system and fish growth.

Actually Janet, I have a friend who did this with a hydroponic project. He used oats. It sprouts very fast, is tender and very high in protein. He kept trays lined with paper towels. Then he flooded and drained the trays. Every seven days he harvested and fed to pigs an fish. Bothe species did great.

I'm feeding my Perch tadpoles at the moment as there are literally millions of them around in the local pond. I just throw one of those bait traps in and pull in after an hour or so and that gives me enough food to keep about 20 fish (trout and Perch) happy.

we have Pavlov's Perch. Every time someone puts their head over the top of the tank, the spangled perch appear, waiting, with their mouths ready.

We spend a bit of time each afternoon scraping through the mulch in the yard for beetles etc. They don't swim very well or for very long Snap! Splash!

Sprouted seed to my knowledge contains much higher % proteins and enzymes than the non-sprouted.

Pavlovs perch. ROFLMAO

It's the wrong time of year for me to go collecting tadpoles or bugs. That will have to wait. I don't think the fish will eat ice and snow. (Although the weather has been very warm so far this winter.)

Glad to hear about the oats, DT. I can get 25 pounds of wheat for US$26, but oats are a little more. The size of the wheat kernels is also attractive, although as the fish get larger, maybe corn would work, too. The other thing that was attractive to me is that wheat doesn't have a very heavy skin that falls off as the seed sprouts. I ruled out beans and alfalfa because of their skins are heavy. I wasn't sure if the fish would eat the heavy skins. I will do a little more research on nutrition of various grains, but it sounds as if an experiment is in order once I get the tilapia. In the end, the tilapia will be the final judge!

LOL Jaymie!! I have Pavlov's goldfish!

talking bout Parlov ,

there was this local article in which there was this malaysian who uses a bell to feed and train the wild fish.

quote
"When we first started, several of us had to go to the pool three times a day to scatter the food pellets made of seeds - morning, noon and evening," he said.

Jamaluddin also sounded a bell to call the fish when they scattered the food. "At first, only the lampam fish were attracted to the pellets. But three months later, several kelah weighing between one to three kgs were seen rushing for the food," he said.

After a while, they stopped using the bell and the fish would rush for the pellets whenever they are thrown into the pool."

http://www.mymalaysia.com.my/Vacation/p2_articleid/4

Here is a trained fish video
Using the same method I use for my dog

a secondary school science thingy we did once had lupins come up first as far as germinating goes

were we not talking a while back about lupins having a really high protein content?

Should get an update from Joel - who got a heap of lupins and was soaking them to sprout. Haven't heard what happened.