Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Its been a long time since I logged in and during that time my system is rolling along really well.
I have tried several species of fish, and I felt the need to say a bit in favour of the Catfish
2 years ago I bought 10 of these critturs, fairly expensive @$2 ea for a 40mm fingerling, but 2 years later I realize that they were a good investment.
They co habit with trout and silver perch
They dont jump out of the tank like trout
They can cope with temperature extremes, water temp 6 to 28 degrees
They keep the water clean
They dont eat much, but still produce plenty of nutrient, see attached pic, they are certainly pushing the tomatoes along well.
So, in conclusion, for a low maintenance system, clean water that doesn't smell, and good nutrient Catfish wins easily.
I plan to run the next 12 months with these 10 catties and no extra stock, and I think they will be perfect for the system.
cheers
Rodney[album][/album]

The person in this video said (in the previous video) that he was planning on using catfish.
See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkDmh11LQ3g .
At the point 4:50 he mentions that his tank had frozen over on top, and he only lost 1 fish.
This would indicate that the catfish can withstand temperatures down to 1C for short periods of time.

There are catfish and then there are catfish, many different varieties that like many different conditions.

The main ones around Vic (euroa - the OP's location) seem to be the Tandanus tandanus - eel-tailed catfish. I got mine from CentralVic Freshwater Fish - not only is it close, Rick sells any amount (Glenwater in Glenburn sounds great and has stock but only sells in lots of 50 - for most AP'ers that is a bit many for smaller systems) and they were only $1 each for 4 - 5cm. He has SP's and Golden Perch as well - I'm not really willing to get into GP's because of the live feed requirement but if anyone knows of a different feeding strategy for them...?

My 10 catfish seem to be doing well with the 30+ SP's in the IBC - but from a couple of stories around the site I will have to make sure I keep the SP's fed. But so far, so good...

I don't think any of mine have been eaten by my silvers but its a bit hard to count them

Depends where you live....

I would have called that "fairly average".....

Guy at Glenwaters wanted more than $2 ea. It was either $3 or $3.50 - I think the latter. So what I paid Rick at CVFF was a bargain...

Well I hope Rick has cleaned up his act. My only experience with him was getting 20 trout that all died over the first week. He was pulling out more dead fish than live ones when he was getting mine, so I was a goose for even taking them.

Yeah, I just had a read through your thread - I'd have been wandering on down there and having a few words had it been me.

But everything looked clean and healthy when we were there a week back. water smelled clean, was nice and clear and I checked all his RAS tanks as well as his own AP ones. No floaters and active fingers all around. He seems a decent sort - if you'd taken some of your water down there and let him test it I reckon he'd have probably replaced you fish for you.

I didn't see in your thread anything about symptoms except the open mouth one, but then you mentioned white spot as a cause - do you think that is what it was? If so I'm puzzled as to how it would survive the water change you did - maybe I should be asking this over in that thread...

I think he was just starting out back then and the water in his tanks was muddy. Like I said I was mad to even take the fish and should have got them at Ballarat

I guess we're lucky here in the US, even 8-10" channel cats are less than $1 each. 4-6" are around $0.50-0.65

With Channel Catfish being such a major aquaculture species in the US... that's not overly surprising...

Here in Australia.. the Tandanus... Eel-tailed Catfish.. isn't a major aquaculture species... and only a few hatcheries actually supply fingerlings.... most through natural breeding in ponds... rather than hormone induced spawning of any significant numbers...

Price is reflected accordingly....

My little tandanus (tandani?) are plucky little buggers - right in among the SP's for the larvae feed this morning and some of those SP'd are 3 times their size.

(finally got a good look at my biggest SP - he's about 9cm long (over 8 because my finger was right beside him) and about 2cm across the belly. Even the biggest catfish is only about 5 or 6cms long and half the width at the head. (SP's seem to add fat in the belly but the cats seem more streamlined - is that normal?

i went to glenwaters over the weekend and they were great. we got 80 silvers for $1 each (sizes varied from 30mm - 60mm) and 20 tandanus cats for $2.50 and they are all 60mm.

Central Vic wanted $2 per silver and $3 per catfish and the trip only took 10 minutes longer to get from melton to glenburn so we were saving money going to glenwaters