What fish to keep in the colder parts of NSW Australia?

thinggy42

Hi
I'm new to the forum but have been reading up on aqua phonics for months now. I have a CHIFT PIST system planned out with a 100l tank and 5 grow beds made from ibcs planned. At this point it is purely for hobby purposes but I am thinking of a commercial aquaponics project in the future if this is successful.

I am in NSW Australia near the blue mountains so it is somewhat cold here. I was initially very interested in jade perch but I think hearing the tank would end up being too expensive in the long run. Is anyone else here in NSW keeping jade perch? I would love to get some advice on what other fish I could potentially keep. I am interested in eating them and if something can grow quickly I would be particularly interested.

Any help would be appreciated, I'm glad to be a member of this community!

Thankyou

Bender

Trout or silver perch go well in colder climates

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Ben G2

Hi
If you keep silvers you will end up heating for better growth.
Go with trout and design your system to stay cool and there is a way to keep trout all year.
I am down in sydney and keep trout and salmon all year with chillers.
Cheers Ben

thinggy42

Bender wrote:

I am down in sydney and keep trout and salmon all year with chillers.

Oh wow i havent heard of someone using chillers before. How does your system cope on the hotter days when its above 35 degrees?

Do you think the salmon or the trout is a better choice? Also is a lot of electricity spent cooling down the system?

Sorry for all the questions!

Mr Damage

Silver Perch and Murray Cod... I wouldn't go Jade Perch down where you are, they even have a hard time getting them through winter up in Brisbane.

Gunagulla

My Murray Cod don't eat much when the water is cold, and they are lot slower growing than trout, so I think I'd stick to trout in the BMs.

Mr Damage

When you weigh up the purchase cost of a decent chiller of suitable capacity and combine that with the running costs, Murray Cod may well be the better option.

Gunagulla

Without knowing where the OP is located it's a bit hard to say whether or not a chiller would be required. "Near the BMs" could be Penrith or Oberon, and there is a huge difference in climate between the 2. I'd suggest no chiller would be required at Oberon, even through summer, but wouldn't try to keep trout over summer at Penrith.

thinggy42

Gunagulla wrote:

Without knowing where the OP is located it's a bit hard to say whether or not a chiller would be required. "Near the BMs" could be Penrith or Oberon, and there is a huge difference in climate between the 2. I'd suggest no chiller would be required at Oberon, even through summer, but wouldn't try to keep trout over summer at Penrith.

Sorry about that, I have updated my location on my profile. It does get pretty hot here over summer and the fish tank will be kept outside. Perhaps silvers would be the only suitable fish. At what water temperature would silvers need heating?

Gunagulla

Have a chat with Colours about how her fish are doing, another forum member who is probably just down the road from you. A post in the Kurrajong ponics thead should attract her attention

BuiDoi

..
Silvers - my understanding is they stop eating at 16C.. and as I got mine pre-summer, I found it necessary to help with some heat via black poly tube in the sun.. just so they would eat something..
(my system is pretty sheltered and designed for reduce solar exposure)
..
.

Mr Damage

My Silvers stop feeding at 13C... raise it by just 1 degree and their back into it!... and there have been posts of Silvers surviving quite happily at 10C for short periods. One poster on the Practical Aquaponics forum claims her Silvers survived spells of 6C... I'm not too sure about that one.

Murray Cod will handle both cold and warm water temps. My pet Murray feeds all year round, right through both winter and summer. Her tank has had water temps varying between 10C and 31C. She is most active when her water temp is around 26-27C.

A high oxygen level is the key to success with Murray's. A couple of summers ago I doubled the amount of air going into her water, the tank already had what seemed sufficient air going into it (she'd survived and grown well on it for about 8 years, even laid three batches of eggs) and she had still been feeding well even though the water was up around 30C at that point, but I installed a second aerator, an Aquapro DC-300 240v/6v battery back-up type, because there was a lot of major roadworks happening nearby and they kept cutting the power for extended periods. Within a few hours she became much more active and developed an insatiable appetite, which she still has 2 years later, she would eat however much food I put into her tank... Trust me, I've tried to find her limit, I've fed her stupid amounts of prawns and even multiple whole Herring, but the bio-filter couldn't keep up, so I had to stop that experiment.

rendang

Hi.
You will easily grow a batch of trout to plate size and bigger every winter where you are without chilling, you don't need to chill during summer, just get a new batch of trout fingerlings about this time each year. You can also keep some silver perch so the system is ticking over during summer or just go fishless. All the best with it, cheers

Petesake

Hi, I am in Healesville southern Victoria the temp here in the foothills ranges from around -3 to 40 deg C.
What species are recommended for this area?

I'm planing a 1000lt IBC with 6 sqm F&D GBs,SLO, swirl filter, river pebbles, sump pumped and aerated FT.
What would be the recommended batch size for trout and other recommended fish?

Gunagulla

Trout. How deep are your GBs? If ~300mm deep, then you could probably go with about 25 or 30 for a first attempt.

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