Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'd love to keep eels - Think they would be almost impossible to kill from low DO, based on my experience catching them as a kid. There's actually a major threat to wild eel population at present due to a virus - They are now on the 'do not retain' list in the UK for rec fishing. Used to be my bread and butter species!

Slippery buggers them eels. Good luck keeping them tanked. Trapped a half dozen in the creek out back and put them in AP to purge. Every last one escaped within a week from a covered IBC. Am sure they made it back to the creek. Good eats though

Yes I know but they are caught in fresh water and therefore I would consider them a freshwater delicacy if caught in freshwater.

Also depending on the river the Salmon naturally found in the UK may be wholly freshwater. There are a number of landlocked populations. Also even in rivers that are open to the sea depending on the river the salmon may be quite old/large and have never been to sea even though there parents have.

Furthermore many brown trout populations both land locked and not spend their entire lives in freshwater.

I have kept reddies in my aquiarium fish tanks before feeding the mostly compost worms and the ocasional yabbie seem to grow well, did have the last lot die off when the water temp hit 33, but besides that have never lost any and they are not well looked after between the dam and my house 3-4 hours in a bucket in the back of my ute.

I want some reds in ap.. Come on..... :-)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

You are a bit too far away from me but anyone within a few hours away that want's some I may be able to help them out.I still think they may have a future in AP.One problem you do have is that just because they are small you don't know whether they are young or old ones that have never had enough food and are stunted.I have had some in a tank for three years and they have never grown at all while others have grown quite well.If you could breed them in a small area and know that you had young ones I am sure they would be fine .I know I am sticking my neck on the chopping block saying this but I think they will out grow a silver perch.

bump! Those redfin we went out and caught are starting to take floating pellets off the surface now Don, they dont hit the pellets like trout do but they will come up and eat them while i am sitting there watching.
Be interesting to see if they feed with more gusto as the weather warms up
For anyone who wants to have fish year round i think they are a much better option than silver perch
and i am of the opinion that most of them would outgrow silvers too




____________________

I was once young and stupid, i'm not so young now

How are the redfins going guys?
Thinking I might throw a few of these in my tanks if I can catch some this next week. Like most things in life, I suck at fishing but they sound easy enough to catch.

How to breed them

They will spawn naturally in spring time, and out of season if you control the photo-period and temperature to mimic spring time. You can manually strip the eggs and sperm. Then incubate the eggs at 15-16 degrees C. Larvae are fed zooplankton and artemia nauplii. You could culture green water and the larvae and zooplankton that occur would be a feed source until they are weaned onto artificial feed.

http://www.bim.ie/media/bim/content/pub ... uction.pdf

lots of info here

How to farm zooplankton and phytoplankton

First you need to grow algae as a food source for the zooplankton. To do this you need a tank that gets plenty of light. Fill this with some AP water and you need to add some phosphate and aeration. The zooplankton are already likely to be present in the AP water and just need a food source to get going. For more details there's info here on bcotton's thread on bluegill and also over at aquaponicsnation where he is a member - I happened to find that thread first so here you go - http://aquaponicsnation.com/forums/topic/9010-sunfish-reproduction-in-aquariums-aquaponics-and-ras/

In extensive fish farming, ponds are often fertilised with manure. This encourages an algae bloom, and then zooplankton and other small organisms that feed on algae appear. Then when the ecosystem has stabilised the fish are introduced.

For small scale breeding something like scotty's suggestion would be more appropriate. I think intensive hatcheries often culture their micro algae in clear plastic bags hanging in front of light source, or in the sun.

Scotty: do you think a mineralization tank of clear/translucent plastic placed in the sun would be an effective way to culture micro-algae etc?

.

I know that the translucent plastic tanks will work that way, the more translucent the better. Can't be using the tank as a mineralizer at the same time.