Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone,

I am from the Ottawa, Ontario, Canada area, and I am new to the forum. I've been on here a few days now, and It's so awesome to see people sharing from all over the world (and in such a friendly way). I look forward to talking with you all.

I'm so glad to see fellow Canadians on here. Anyone from Ontario?

Cheers
Rsonic

Welcome,

I'm almost from Ontario... about 2 hours from Ontario anyhow =) although Ottawa means you're almost Quebec'ian. =)

Hi Rob,

Thanks. Nice to meet someone so close by. I'm actually a little south of Ottawa not too far from the US border. I lived in Ottawa most of my life though.

Your smack dab in the middle of 3 great lakes. Raising any Silver Perch? I know they're popular around Lake Michigan.


Cheers
Steve

I've only caught a silver perch one time I think in lake Huron. They are called white bass down here I guess, because I had never heard of silver perch here and never thought to look it up when I've seen it on here. I didn't know any difference so I'm sure the one 'white bass's I caught I filleted and tossed in with other pan fish so couldn't say if it was any better than anything else.

I think I'd rather have yellow perch though, they are the best fish I think I've ever had.

Growing up my grandpa had a big boat that we fished lake Michigan a lot, mostly for salmon and trout though. He got rid of that boat before I was a teenager though so it wasn't until recent years that I got back on the great lakes. I have a small speed boat that was built back in the 70s (older than I am) that doesn't sit far out of the water so can't take it on big water unless it's pretty calm. My father in law bought a bigger boat a couple years ago so we started fishing Saginaw bay trying to get to a point we could trust it to take us on bigger water but Everytime we think it's going to be ok it breaks down on us.

oops! My mistake, I meant yellow perch.

yellow perch are amazing =) I attempted to raise them in AP but I overloaded my system too quickly for being a new system because I added 25 yellow perch and a gallon of shiner minnows in to a new system without properly cycling it so it had a huge ammonia spike and pretty much everything died.

I think I have 2 or 3 yellow perch that survived that are in the AP system still. They are in with my tilapia now. I missed the local spring fish days to get more yellow perch, but I will probably get more in the fall fish days. I think they will probably take 2 or 3 years to grow out to a good size to eat them though.

I ended up raising rainbow trout through the winter and now switched to blue tilapia for summer. I think I am pretty close to hitting the 1 year date for my system, at least the initial test system. Once I had the greenhouse finished inside I converted the test system in to a bigger system and moved the gravel from the test system in to one of the beds for the permanent system, so at least part of my system is close to a year old. The rest of the system is only a few months old.

Sounds like you've had some fishy adventures.

Being so far North, I'm considering raising Rainbow Trout, so I don't have to heat the water so much. Anything I should know? Any tricks or problems that might crop up?

Greetings from the Sin City!

only problems I had with my trout this past winter was that they like to jump. I lost 3 or 4 who jumped out of the tank. One or two of them made it through a tiny little area that I never would have thought they could get through. The others had jumped out before I had covered the tank. Once I moved them to my bigger tank that has a much smaller opening to cover I didn't have any jump out.

Those are nasty trouts. Lol. Kidding aside, the cold weather must be unbearable to them.

unbearable to them? trout prefer cold water. They are perfectly happy living in water not much warmer than freezing. They are happiest and maximize growth at about 55F, and die around 72F... all varies a bit with what type of trout but they are cold water fish.

I think the trout will love it in my basement. It's warm enough that the water won't freeze, but still cool all year round (whether it's 36 C or -40 C outside). I think I'll keep a net over the FT to stop them from the suicidal jumping. What a tragic loss Rob.