Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

If they are going into the grow beds they would be wet wrigglers no?

Nova

This evening we had fresh green beans with butter, and pasta with fresh herbs -- 2 kinds of basil, parsley and spinach. Deeeelicious! In case it's not totally obvious why I'm mentioning this, all of the green stuff at dinner came from the AP system. The green beans were smaller than from my dirt garden. I'm not sure if that's because of shorter days, different variety, or my impatience to eat them. Maybe all three.

This week I learned that wasabi starts to wilt if the water is 85F/29C and it's a sunny day. The sunroom warms up quite a bit. I may have to cool the tilapia down for the summer to keep from killing the wasabi.

My large heater failed again and I'm returning it for store credit this time. After the same make of heater fails twice on me, I'm done with it. I just put in a trio of regular aquarium heaters, and am synching temperatures between my new breeder/fry aquariums and the main tank in preparation for Tilapia Sexing Day (TSD). By the end of it, I will have the biggest best 3 females + 1 male in one aquarium, the next best 10 or so females in the other aquarium, the rest of the males in the main tank, and a pot of fish broth simmering on the stove. In case you missed it, I found some good clear pics of tilapia private parts and posted links in the Tilapia for Us (USA) thread. I think I know what I'm looking for now.

bye-bye girls

lucky bloke!

Well, I've learned a lot today.

1) Cat hair clogs pumps.
2) A 4 inch tilapia can jump straight up out of the water about one foot. Repeatedly.
3) Even with blue food coloring, I don't trust my ability to sex tilapias!!!

I convinced my husband to help with Tilapia Sexing Day. The goal was to get the females out of the grow-out tank and to select the three best females and one male for a breeding harem. I manned the nets and did the handling. He had the all-important job of Keeper of the Food Coloring. As I netted and cradled each fish upside down, he dropped food coloring in the appropriate location. We consulted and agreed on the gender of each fish. On a lot of fish, I was pretty sure we made the right call. On some females, they were starting to 'blush' around the opening for the ovipositor and on some males, the shaping was very distinct. However, there were 25-30% that we were not confident on. Given the original base goal of controlling reproduction, I really didn't think we were going to achieve it. So, what to do, what to do?

I ended up selecting the 8 biggest "probable females" and the 4 biggest "probable males", and distributing them into the two aquariums. They will figure it out, and when they know, I will know. Once I know the genders, I'll down-select again. It's actually quite typical in aquarium keeping to get a breeding pair by raising up 6-8 juveniles and letting the fish pair themselves.

The rest of the fish went back into the main tank. Yup, boys and girls together again. I have two ideas for controlling the breeding.

1. Put a false bottom in the tank with large holes. Something like the grids for flourescent ceiling lights comes to mind. When fish spawn, the eggs would fall through the false bottom, and the female would not be able to pick them up to incubate.

2. Put small predators in the tank. Something like spotted pims might do the trick. Eggs and fry would become snack food quickly.

Other ideas or suggestions?

More pics.

The whole breeding tank is shown last, with breeding arena for the Lucky Bloke on the left, and hiding places for the Sheilas on the right.

UGF with larger-than-usual gravel to discourage massive digging, and double-sized filter for extra-clean water.

gee, so they go into the Blue Room for privacy

Have fun with it all

The green beans look pretty good!

Good deal Janet. Seems to all be working out for you.

Looks great Janet. Also good to see that you have the Ausit vernacular down pat - what a great sheila

Population control via yellow perch? It all looks great Janet. Why blue food coloring and was it all a bit stressfull for the fish or did they handle it well?

.......and then retire to their own apartment

good setup Janet, can't wait to see the little'uns

nice............

The blue food coloring helped define the teeny tiny anatomy on the fish. The males had a narrow V-shaped mark behind the anus, and the females had a more rounded shape. And then there were the mystery fish!

I'm sure it was a bit stressful, but the fish handled it very well. Once I had them cradled in my hand, they held quite still. They did this vibrating thing to try to get free of the net, but once gently cradled, were fine. As my sorting bins got full, there was a little gulping at the surface, but that probably only lasted 10 minutes at the end.

Netting tip: sweep up from below--it confuses them.

Update -- the fish in the pictured tank are all squabbling for the best spot in the tank. One of the best looking males has already claimed the Blue Room. There's another male that is trying to make a spot for himself in the rear corner behind the apartments. There's one that I'm pretty sure is female--she has a more rounded belly. The rest I am not sure of yet. The other tank has no furnishings. There is minimal squabbling, and I need to take more time to observe before I have opinions on gender there. Everybody is still skittish, but starting to settle down and eat a little dinner. In another week, I may swap some fish around in the breeding tanks to align the best-looking females with the best looking male.

Snap....left out again. Whats the matter with us plain fish?