Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is for all the newbie’s. yes you can grow barra in an IBC. Yes they will take low temperatures 16deg so far. Still eating still growing. Only had them 4to5 months now but they have three more months of good weather to come. Plate size now but I want them bigger. I may even try to bread them? wouldn’t that bee a hoot! Now someone with just five months experience is thinking five years ahead? Now who would have thought off that? Yes my system will be bigger by then to do it in. but at lest someone is thinking about it. And if we don’t think we don’t do! And nothing will ever change!

So who else wants to grow Barramundi on here?

You wouldn't have a brother or relative in Melbourne that goes by the name of Pisnet would you?

Blizzard, I asked you on another thread about your claims to plate size Barra as above and on other threads.

Can you clarify you are saying (piecing together your other threads) that you bought your Barra in September (just over 3 months in comparison to above 4-5), that they were 10-15cm, and that they are now plate size.

What size are you saying is plate size, and what is your secret as you are beating commercial growers! :dontknow

I think you need to start an actual system thread Blizzard, as Bcasey points out, it's very hard to keep track of so many different threads.

People won't hijack a system thread the same way that the general discussion threads sometimes get off track because they will respect that it's your space. Not to say they will always agree with you and never ask questions, but it will still be easier to follow. I'm sure one of the mods could even help you compile some of your other threads if you asked nicely?

If you want to chat about barra growth rates specifically though, and separate to your system thread, I'm pretty sure there are already quite a few threads on Barra in the 'Fish' section if you have a look. There have been quite a few people growing barramundi with varying levels of success over the years (as I've said before, I read rather than watch videos, so I've spent lots of time scouring the forum for info, as well as the internet at large).

http://m.wikihow.com/Bread-Fish
here's an easier recipe, shouldn't take five years the bread a fish

I did that. And it was hijacked. I have added a few post and was told its not necessary! Then latter the same people are doing what I said in the fist place?

Before buying yabbies I watched the WA fisheries. Advice. Before starting up I watch thousands of clips from water features. Koi ponds. Pond liners. Filter ideas. When it come to the net I am a bit of a junkie. If I want to know something I search for it. Read or watch numerous articles or clips. And then form an opinion off all the advice. You have to read some more of what people on here say. Especially when they slip in a how many fish they lost today. Or that their beds are starting to clog?

I have had a few minor problems. But nothing major. Easy fix!

A forum is for discussion. A place to talk about ideas. Not a place for trolls to put the new people down.

To me plate size is something hangs over your plate? But don’t panic. No fish will be eaten until its BBQ size.

The 10cm fish was the smallest silver I brought the first day the others were around 15cm. A few days later I brought two more Barra at 20cm. Yes I know these fish are not catch size if you are out fishing. But I am not fishing. The three larger fish are around 30/35cm. Why are my grow rates faster? They have the room to grow? I don’t have the capacity to put 1000 fish in my tank to start with.

So I will let you do the maths here. 7 fish in 700ltrs of water fed twice daily. I don’t scoop out the extra feed. That goes through the filters. Then broken down goes to the yabbies. Anything that gets past that goes to the grow beds. Or back to the fish tank then back to the filters.

So no fish are on the menu till February at the earliest. Its just the start of summer here growing time. I expect them to be twice the size they are now by then. At current rate of growth.

Just a side note. Fish in the wild will grow due to feed. Fish in captivity will only grow to the size of the tank depending on numbers in the tank? And conditions supplied. My fish have air heat and food. I avoid putting nets in to take away excess feed to reduce stress. I try and leave them to what I want them to do. As in grow.

Breeding, hatching and growing out barra at home wouldn't be entirely impossible but it would be extremely difficult.

Firstly you would need to grow out the barra you have now to sexual maturity which would take approximately 2-3 years if the climate is controlled for peak growth above 26deg - 30deg. Longer if you cannot provide a controlled environment. You would need to use heated tanks or aquariums to take the fish through 8 or so cooler months of the year, this may be costly. A sexually mature female would be around 70 - 100cm long so you would need big tanks.

If you make it that far you would then need to anaethatize the mature fish and induce spawning with hormone injections as this won't happen naturally in captivity. Not sure if either of those products are available to the general public.

But say you are successful and are now the proud owner of 6 million eggs, you then need to transfer, ozonate and keep them in a hatchery tank that is fed pure filtered sea water as they will not survive in fresh water. Then theres incubation tanks etc etc. Diseases are fairly common so there would need to be some understanding of what your doing through the whole process.

During grow out you would need to come up with a way to provide zooplankton as a food source and then eventually wean them onto formulated food. Up until the are 150mm long you will need to grade them as they will canabilise each other. This would require more tanks and grading systems.

Not an easy process.

Nice explanation Charlie, it's good to have a basic understanding of what goes into breeding in captivity. Condensed and in layman's terms too :-) cheers!


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that's an old wives tale!

fish can be stunted, but that would be due to overpopulation, or bad water quality or underfeeding

If it were true then the results achieved in commercial AQ would be impossible.

Except you don't seem interested in a discussion. You don't seem interested in hearing contradictory points of view. It is impossible to have a constructive conversation with someone who thinks that they are being victimized or persecuted when you disagree with them.

Your experience in keeping fish in aquariums will be useful to you as you venture further along your AP road but as useful as it is much of it will not be directly applicable and some of it won't be applicable at all.

Having said that as much as you have to a lot to learn about AP I think you should focus more on how to be a more polite human being and how to interact in a community where different and sometimes contradicory ideas are encouraged but personal animosity is not.

[quote="Stuart Chignell"]Your experience in keeping fish in aquariums will be useful to you as you venture further along your AP road but as useful as it is much of it will not be directly applicable and some of it won't be applicable at all. quote]
i thought so as well... but the fishkeeping "experience", at least to me is completely suspect now that i know he thinks that the size of the tank determines the size of the fish...
an aquarium "hobbyist"

Nothing wrong with being a hobbyist. I'm only ever going to be a hobbyist APer, but I hope that I will be knowledgeable enough to help someone out one day, or at least to do justice to the pursuit when I'm explaining it to people.

Stuart. Bullshit! From day one you said you don’t need filtration if using media grow beds! Yet you put on a resent post your beds are starting to block?
Another post you said air pumps are not required in AP? Yet you said in a post you need one and are using one?
Are you bipolar by any chance? For no matter what I say you object and discredit. Then you add later after the sheep have arrived behind you. That you are doing exactly what I suggested in the first place?
Now I don’t have the years behind me of killing fish as you do! Nor the sheep! But I can see the pattern. Your just a troll!