Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I recently spotted a tank full of live adult silver perch at a local fishmongers. I bought nine fish and took them home to my fish tank, where they seem to be very happy and doing quite well. I'm trying to get them to eat pellets but so far they'll only accept live worms. They were living in very shitty conditions at the fishmongers and I assume they were probably being fed fish guts and offcuts.

I thought perhaps if I stopped feeding them altogether they might get hungry enough to accept some pellets?

The only success I had with getting large perch to eat pellets was to feed them to small fish first and then get the perch to eat the small fish.

Was a bit labour intensive.

I wild caught my perch as minnows.

I never could get them to eat pellets.
They would barely eat anything other than crickets or shrimp.
The pellets just float on the top until they get water logged and then sink to the bottom.

I think they need to be farm raised. They apparently don't think the pellets are food.

Hmmm might have to expand my worm farm and add mealworms and crickets to the menu. I've got some small jades in there as well and they're voracious feeders. I was hoping the Jades' daily feeding frenzy might stimulate the silvers to join in, but they show no interest. They've picked up the occasional pellet from the bottom of the tank but they always spit it out.

I might give Stuart's method a go.

if they are mature fish they may be more interested in feed stuff like duck weed and azolla or even lettuce,
might be worth a try and once they get used to eating floating water plants they may just start eating floating pellets.

i recommend,

crowding them
increase their metabolism with warm water (what "warm" water means exactly will vary by species but fish are cold blooded meaning the water directly affects their metabolism."
get them to eat "something" to keep them alive even if it's minnows
get them to eat something that is not moving, frozen krill, bloodworks, beef heart, liver, etc.
Build up feed aggressiion.
once they start coming to the surface when they see you start mixing in softened commercial feed.
taper out the expensive non-commercial feed.

review my feed training crappie thread. not all of them will get feed trained and live, but some will.

Whatever trait gets fish to accept commercial feed is though to be genetic because every subsequent generation of feed trained fish are easier to feed train.

but who will breed from their existing stock..
Would they not be eventually eaten and a new lot introduced...?
You might get smaller fish to learn from the older, but then if TOO big a difference the smaller may become dinner for the older..

Re. Fish at the fish monger... they would likely not bother feeding their charges.. knowing that they would likely be sold and killed in a few days..

I bought live Barra... that way... After weighing them, they were about to chop their heads off..
They did not survive at home because the water was still 13-14C..
..
.

i am just explaining why farm raised fish are easy to pellet train and wild caught fish arent.

IMHO the best method is source your fish from a reputable supplier and not bother trying to domesticate wild fish. But in cases like crappie in the US, that's not possible, so i developed some guidelines that have worked for me to feed train fish that people say "cannot be feed trained"


interpret the info any other way you want. I do breed my fish and Next season when my crappie are big enough i will confirm that the guidelines i have already documented in my sunfish reproduction thread do or do not work on crappie (they should)

OK some great advice in there. Might try a bit of beef heart with a petter or two stuffed inside. Water temp is 23c, which should be optimal according to the guidelines I've researched. Crowding also makes sense, because it should increase competition between them.

I still suggest you keep in mind if these Silver perch are of a reasonable size they will/should take to green feed quite easily as they DO become omnivores to herbivores as they age, I feed my 40cm silvers duck weed on a regular basis and it can be quite surprising just how much they go through.

o and another thing, I once had Jades in with my silvers (I thought they were silvers as that's what I bought them as) they were veracious and would beet the silvers to the feed every time and they seamed to put the perch off feeding as they were continually being bullied out of the way.

just an observation.

good luck

have you tried sinking (marron/yabbie) pellets?

I believe they don't normally surface feed but can learn to in captivity.my SP are from a Fish farm and were fry when I got them, they are very timid when coming up for the floating pellets but wolf down the sinking marron pellets.

sinking pellets especially during feed training when much of the food will not be eaten is a good way to foul your water and throw off water chemistry. It's much better to teach at the surface where you can remove uneaten food.


I was told by pond biologists that crappie and red ear sunfish a) will not feed train and b) they wont eat any food from the surface. I have since sent those bioligists video of both fish eating pellets from the surface.

The biologists never commented on my videos, i bet they still tell people it cant be done.


brian

They're all between 30-40cms. I tried them with spinach and silberbeet but no takers. I'll give duckweed a go.

Funny thing is the jades are only 12-13cms but are bullying the much larger silvers. They swim up beside them in battle mode with all their fins splayed and the silvers back down. Considering separating them until I get the silvers into a feeding regimen.

Haven't tried those yabby pellets. The pellets I've got are "specially formulated for Aussie natives" Blah blah. They sink immediately when I drop them in, but they all get hoovered up quickly by the jades and my one lonely little carp. Would definitely prefer to have them feeding at the surface.

I'll try the pellet-stuffed-meat option and see how that goes...

Meat experiment did not go well: I dropped a few chunks into the tank but the silvers just continually sucked them in, chewed them a bit and then spat them out, churning the meat into tiny shreds and polluting the tank.

Back to the drawing board.