Crappie in Aquaponics (feed training experiment)

scotty435

J.B. wrote:

what are the crappie hybridized with?

They are a hybrid of White and Black Crappie.

APynckel

Any updates on the crappie?

bcotton

not really, i continue to feed them.

The hybrid crappie are doing the best. They are growing faster and are the more aggressive feeders. If i leave a few uneaten pellets on the surface of their tank they will eventually get eaten

The black crappie are shy... some days they just dont come to the surface to eat. If i leave a few uneaten pellets on the surface they dont seem to be willing to eat them even when i am gone. The snails end up eating them.

I dont think there's really going to be any report-able results until next year when comparing size and weight will be very obvious. I am starting to worry the black crappie wont grow enough to mature and bread next year. I dont want to breed the hybrids because F2 is inferior, but i will if i have to for one season just to work on the breeding process.

bcotton

J.B. wrote:

Your work here has the gears turning... I wonder what margin I could make if I was successfully able to apply this information to golden shiners for the bait industry. Talking to the locals bait species are wild caught and supply varies each year.
!

i heard recently that dollars per pound that bait fish have the highest sell price. I believe it.

bcotton

Some of the crappie (maybe half) seem to have regressed and are not eating commercial pellets. Maybe they never were, just werent emaciated enough for me to sort them out. But there's 15 or 20 of them that are feeding aggressively.

I moved the hyrbid crappie outdoors into my aquaponics system but the black crappie are in a garage winter system with about 400 tilapia. The fish tank is a pool i got on end of summer clearance for $30. I built a series of filters out of 55 gallon barrels. This is a RAS but not aquaponics.

ALL of my tilapia are Mozambique and they display the recessive color gene (orange) so it's easy to pick out the darker fish which are the black crappie. Some of them are really starting to put on some weight.

I'll do a full write up of the RAS in my ferro thread in a couple of weeks once i finish the rest of the filters.

telonline

I love seeing them hit the food like that.
Thanks for the video

Curious

@bcotton - Hi, quick question is there an age limit to start feed training? I currently have 2 marbled goby that i would love to train to take pallets, i tried for a while but failed miserably :upset:

they rather starve then eat pallets, but i might be doing it wrong. I tried starving them for a week before putting in some sinking pallets.

What is a proper way of introducing carnivorous fish that is already slightly grown to pallets?

Regards

bcotton

i had a very detailed report post on page 2 that covers these topics and more. not definitive information but what i learned and currently believe.

i think it will be tough to train just two. It can probably be done but i have had my best results training large groups of fish (more than 50) in as small of space as possible. When i had 6 black crappie in an aquarium, they wouldnt take feed until i added a dozen feed trained blue gill then they started competing.

I also think it's easier to feed train young fish when they are still putting everything in their mouth learning what is and is not food. But i do plan to try to train some older 5-7 black crappie this year so i dont think it's impossible to feeed train older fish, just maybe more challenging.

I would do it the same way i do small fish..
1) crowd them
2) soften the commercial feed by soaking it a 3-5 mins before introducing it
3) maybe try to add add a few feed trained fish to increase feed aggression, competition.

brian

Curious

@bcotton - Hi, thanks for the reply. If you could please take a look at my system thread, i have included pictures of these said fishes, let me know if you think they are too big to learn. I would need to get fishes that are equal to or bigger in size to crowd them if not the new ones would just be food.

Regards

bcotton

I have given the best advice i can give. I am only experienced with sunfish, though i think the techniques can probably be used for most species.

There may be other ways to feed train but my method is very contingent on crowding.

Curious

@ bcotton - Thanks for the advice.

Dagger

Please keep us updated if it works I might switch over to crappie instead of tilapia since the weather in kansascity isent the best for them.

bcotton

Dagger,

It works for sure. I accidentally killed all my hybrid crappie they were overcrowded and i lost power. But the black crappie have been living all winter in my indoor/garage aquaculture system with about 400 tilapia. In april or may i will move the tilapia outdoors and when i drain the tank and relocate the black crappie, i will take some pictures and do a new count.

joblow

Hi Brian,

Great video, just love seeing young fish smash food like that :thumbright:

bcotton

This video is a little dated.. I took it but forgot to post it here.. I have about the same number of crappie in an outdoor tank from another feed train experiment.. . Not high adoption but the ones that did adopt commercial feed are doing well.

fish are still alive and made it through the summer.

~100 large-ish ~1 lb channel catfish outdoors in 1250 gallon tank (aquaponics)
~12 feed trained black crappie indoors (aquaculture)

The crappie part starts at about :52

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