Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm seriously thinking of giving these babies a go.

might put 'em inside for a month or so to guage growth then whack them in the trout spa (after i remove the trout! )

Anyone else up for a try?

Temperature tolerance seems to be between 2C and 28C and salinity is no problem

More information

They are generally a slow growing fish. Great sportfish as they attack anything. Send an email to Neil from www.aquablueseafoods.com.au and he will tell you how well they perform in a aquaculture environment. I believe he has some bass fingerlings coming available in Nov/Dec

2 - 28 is awesome range. Great for Canberra where we are freezing cold or stinking hot. I would be interested also.

The fish farm I got all my fish at suggested they were slow growing and quite difficult to keep. They killed their whole pond of them and no longer keep them. Mind you - these are the people who undersupplied my barra by about 50%.

More information please


Come on Steve, apart from the temp range and the salinity advantages (saves putting salt on your tomatoes afetr you pick them I guess) what other advantages do they have?

What do they eat?
Do they like living together?

etc etc

kthanxbye

Sounds like a good research assignment for you trentski . Start with the DPI websites and the fish farm websites like Ausyfish my also have some good into :-)

From Ausyfish.com:

"Australian Bass are predatory fish and require sufficient natural food to thrive. This means a good amount of aquatic insects and other aquatic life such as small fish and frogs. Bass are usually difficult to convert to artificial food in farm dams. For these reasons stocking rates should be relatively low, about, 200-300 per hectare. Growing bass fingerlings in tanks is possible. In tanks, they will take aquaculture feeds.

Bass are excellent eating.

It is rare for Bass to have a muddy or weedy flavour.

Bass are easy to catch on live bait such as yabbies (lobbies), or lures. Since Bass are highly predatory, should you wish to add more fingerlings in later years, the older fish will often eat many of the new fingerlings. "

Little buggers are darn hard to get to bite in my experience here in Toowoomba...but they are a beautiful fish and good munching! i would like to try 'em when I am ready. I know someone who put a small one in theyr fishtank...only one came out! The Bass, looking smug and content.

They have been experimenting with them in recirc at Tafe Epping this year. The fingerlings were from WA and it was 18 hours pond to tank in Melbourne. Didn't lose one. Big tick for hardiness. They have been very slow growing tho. Lovely looking fish but if you are running a salt system, give yellow tail kingfish a go. They do need the heat but grow faster than a weed in poop. Problem may be getting them down here.

Couple of links...

http://www.nativefish.asn.au/bass.html

http://www.aaq.com.au/australian_bass_fingerlings.htm

http://www.nativefish.org.au/fish/australian_bass.htm

Dad's just taken 100 bass fingerlings on board (bought from Ausyfish for a bit over $200 including freight to Adelaide). 2 died in transit but so far haven't seen any dead in the tank.

The fingerlings were TINY. I mean, maybe 2cm long on average. They've been in about 10 days I guess, and appear to have grown slightly.

They're co-habiting the tank with about 3 silver perch (7-8cm long) and about 10 goldfish (slightly larger than the silver perch).

Will keep you posted!

Please do that Jimmy D

Hi everyone

I have one thousand bass in a two thousand litre tank and have had them for twelve months come this January, they have been doing just fine.(lost about 20 I am OK with that) when getting them on to the pellet. I use a feed called grobest http://www.grobest.com.au/ they are based in Queensland and smash whatever feed you put in the Tank depending on the temperature. It is best to use the barramundi P1 feed it is a 3mm pellet at the moment. I must admit they are slow-growing they average around a hundred grams or five to six inches. They have a high FRC ratio not sure on the numbers yet can just tell compared to the other fish that I have. I have not been feeding them to their full potential as I am halfway in the redeveloping my system so I do not want to put a big strain on the system. I am expecting it will take around four years to get a decent sized fish to eat, I am not doing it to eat I have always wanted to see what they grow like in an aquaponic system as I have found it hard to find any real data on this. But come this January I will more than likely get another thousand. Hope this has helped anyone deciding on getting bass for the future.