Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

They're certainly a weird looking fish !

Chilidude, we think they look normal anyway that one's been lacquered so it's not fair to say it looks wierd, cause it's not normal for them to pose like that.

Fun to catch, lots of fight for a small fish and taste great.

I have had Gambusia in California. They use them here for mosquito control also. The eat gold fish flakes well and adapt to tank life well. I caught them out of my pond and put them in my tank. I have had them grow up to about 3.5". They will eat there own eggs and young however so put lots of cover in the tank for them to hide in.

Mr. Donley, Hello, You seem to have some knowledge of breading fish, so I want to pass this by you for your thoughts. I live in Southeast Louisiana and first started to find Tilapia for my system and was told it is illegal to farm Tilapia in this part of LA, so I decided to go after Bluegills. I'm not concerned about growth rate. Only I do want raise a healthy fish for later consumption. These will only be used at first to feed my grow beds. I have 9 ibc. beds each 12" deep and approximately 600 gallons of water. For the most part water temperature can be controlled, after all, the winters we experience range from maybe 28f to 95f in summer. All things working as they should, do you think I'd at least have a shot at raising my Bluegills? Thank you for time, Gil

Since Dave hasn't replied I'll give you a quick bit of info..

I've lost track but I think I've had Bluegill for around 3 years and they are just now getting up to eating size but I'll probably let them go until next year. Some haven't grown much in that time and were put in with the channel catfish with the hope that they'll become fish food - hasn't happened yet though . I'm going to try breeding the larger/faster growers next year.

You should be able to grow and breed them but you'll probably want to occasionally separate them by size and have a dedicated breeding tank (several tanks would probably be good). Yours should grow faster than mine since you have warmer weather for a lot longer each year. There are some strains that may grow faster - mine are just the plain old Bluegill as far as I know - that's what was available here. TCLynx might be able to give you a better indication of the growth rate down south, I think she's been growing them for a while. Having something to feed the fry and getting them feed trained are the two main obstacles you'll need to overcome (some work has been done on this by a couple of people and it looks do-able) - From what I can tell getting them to breed shouldn't be a problem.

Hope this helps.