Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok, I'll stop worrying for a while and find some floating food.



Clever! I was thinking about painted polystyrene or something, but this is a much simpler idea.

I've cut the bottom out of an old bucket and floated it in styrene as an experiment, to see if they would eat the duckweed up in the bucket, but so the weed wouldn't get sucked up by the pump.

I don't know if they are eating it or not, don't think so, the amount doesn't seem to be changing much. I tried tossing a few pellets in the bucket to encourage them into there, but that led to flying and dying fish

I put duckweed into the tank by itself, it gets attacked straight away, but then they attack everything that falls into their space The duckweed does vanish, but bertha (the pump) could be doing that

The first duckweed enclosures were broccoli boxes with the bottom cut out, so you get a simple frame. The duckweed was easily washed out into the rest of the tank though, that's why I tried the bucket.

Check out this post from Les's thread, shows his feeding gadget.

Nova

I fed them some more today, put some outside the bucket and some inside. The stuff outside got savaged. The stuff inside, even with a couple of pellets, didn't seem to get touched
Maybe the bucket is too deep for them to go in and up?

Duckweed is excellent food for baby Yabbies and Marron, I've seen both species at the surface hanging upside down nibbling on the leaves.

I grow all my duckweed in the yabby system and use it to feed to the goldfish every few days, they eat it just as readily now as when I feed them packaged fish food.

maybe u got dumb fish, J?

maybe they've got it too easy I think (god appears at the side of the tank, they beg and food appears what more could they ask for )

I found that although my perch aren't super keen for the duckweed, it will eventually get eaten, just never while I'm watching them...

have found that my catfish in my indoor tank will swim to the surface and endulge...while the SP sit n stare..hence.....I have no more lol....mind u they all go for the beef heart

My tilapia took to duckweed right away, along with radish leaves and anything else green that I've tossed in. They are rather vegetarian, though. That helps. The only thing they haven't eaten are the harder/larger stems, but they might be able to handle them in time. They're still just bitty babies! The goldfish also like the duckweed. I guess I better get around to building my second Duckweed Detour so I have more production capacity.

I spied on the fish this morning and found that yes they do eat duckweed and pretty bloody quickly as it happens no wonder I could never see any when I checked back later on and that was after they'd had pellets!

I'd like to try a duckweed "corral", where you'd use something like a big net pot that floats, but with a slot in it where the duckweed can be pushed out when it replicates enough to get crowded. The fish couldn't get to it until the stuff floats out of the corral; that way you'd never lose all of it, and it would be self-distributing.. But I don't have any room for such experiments right now waah.

My SP and goldies love duckweed, but as others have stated - it is not devoured by the fish if I am watching. I put in a handful and it goes within an hour.

The "feeding" ring works a treat, calms the water so that the floating pellets aren't buffeted about, haven't got them jumping through the hoop yet but it certainly gets knocked about when they ate in a feeding frenzy

I've been watching closely and the fish do indeed eat the duckweed, but only stuff that is well below water - that which is pushed down by incoming water. Perhaps they will develop a taste for it and eat directly from the surface eventually.

When I switch to floating food they'll probably become more interested.

I've just read this thread and curious about the Nardoo. Can we use it for fish food? At the moment we have a heap of it thanks to some lovely rain. Has anyone tried transplanting it into a AP system?[font=Arial] [/font][font=Andalus] [/font][font=Arial] [/font]