Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all. I'm new to this forum.

I am looking for someone in Australia, VIC, MEL, Knox area to share in an order of silver perch fingerlings. I want 100 for myself. By cooperating we can each get a better per unit price by buying in bulk.

Looking forward to your response and/or advice.

Ben

Welcome to the forum.

Should be someone here from your area that may be able to help. Have you got enough bio-filtration for 100 fish?

Feel free to start a system thread with pics!

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~2010/2011~
~2012/2013~
~2014~
~Backyard farming~

thanks for the welcome

Re: do i have enough bio filtration.
Yes. Or at least i think so, only one way to find out for sure.
I am working to a stocking ratio of 25kg of harvest size per 500 litres of filtration. Does this sound right?

I am currently looking into Murray Cod that are under 500g and over 300g (i want them to be fairly uniform in size so they can't eat one another with ease). I'll be getting them from a live sea food retailer in Footscray called NK seafoods. Any one heard of them / have a review. The bloke wants $20/kg that sounds reasonable to me. Is that a good rate?

The shop keeper told me that i would need to sedate silver perch with clove oil if i went with them. He recons that established sized silver perch thrash them selves to death in transit if they are not sedated. Any advice Re: sedation?

Personally I wouldnt use Clove Oil when transporting fish, I've moved plenty of large Silvers and never had any issues and have never seen them thrashing. When I first started delivering fish I used Clove Oil (as I was advised) during the transportation and its pretty much been the only time I have had any issues.

$20kg sounds like a fair price for the Cod.

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http://www.fergusonsprings.com/
Fingerlings delivered to your door

I wouldnt buy large fish at resturant prices.

Go for a drive to glenwaters (glenburn) and buy some fingerlings.

If you after 100+ silver perch he will do them for $1 each, you wont find cheaper than that.
his cod are a bit more expensive, but still quite cheap.
These are very small fish, but that is one of the points of doing this, to grow the fish, not to buy fish of edible size and hold them for a week.

Thanks for your advice Yavimaya & Troutman

If by filtration you mean a grow bed containing expanded clay or gravel then No!

Silver Perch require a minimum of 20L of WET expanded clay or gravel bio-filtration per fish to get them safely to plate size of about 600gm. So 500L of wet gravel could safely support 25 Silvers to 600gm each, or about 15kg.

If you haven't factored the dry top layer of gravel into the equation, then realistically a GB containing 500L of gravel would only have around 420-430L of wet gravel, so 21 Silvers, or about 12.5kg at plate size.

Also, myself I wouldn't be adding Silvers, especially small ones, at this time of year in Melbourne. Why not do a batch of Trout through winter and then add the Silvers at the start of summer?

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Mr Damage - a.k.a: Yabbies
Owner at Perth Aquaponics - Aquaponic Consultant & Trainer
Trade certified Horticulturist & Cert IV TAE

Yea now is the worst time to buy silvers, unless you plan to keep them inside in an aquarium over winter (in which case you will get larger fish late in the season than earlier from the hatcheries), do as damage said and get trout over winter, then buy the perch in late november / early december.

At least if i remember correctly, that is about the timing for glenwaters' fish.

Your closest trout farm is at macclesfield.
I advise to buy yearlings, not fingerlings if you buy trout. Way better $$$ value.