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#368260 03/08/14 07:28 AM
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I am a perennial experimenter and one of the two fish related spring projects for my aquaponics system is to feed train crappie.

Crappie in Aquaponics
Pro's
1) They are temperature hardy for all of north america,
2) They are one of the best tasting freshwater fish
3) I expect them to be more active/feed for a longer portion of the year than say bluegill and channel catfish.

Cons,
1) potential obstacle in getting them to eat commercial feed
2) slower growing fish? The growth charts I have seen online put them at good/great conditions to grow about 1/2 lb a year (which is comparable to a bluegill and considered slow as it would take 2 full years to produce a fillet-able fish). Does this increase if the crappie are eating commercial/balanced feed and not forced to expend energy on hunting?


Pond lake con's that dont apply to aquaponics.
1) in my 800 gallon ferrocement tank , I will not have a problem with overpopulation, even if they decide to breed i dont expect young to be able to survive predation in the close quarters.


I have attempted to feed train red ear sunfish for about 3 years and last year thanks to posts on this forum i was successful. Over the last year i have read every post with the word "crappie" in it and found a lot of encouraging information that this is indeed possible. It is just not often attempted.

Experiment:
a) Friday 3/7, I purchased 50 black and 50 hybrid (1-3")(ended up with about 60 black and 70 hybrid). I was hoping for more middle or smaller fish in that range because i feel like 2" or smaller is a better (best?) time to try to feed train fish as they seem more open to try new things and not so set in their choices of cuisine.

I was surprised at how difficult it is to tell these guys apart at this age. I know roughly half of the hybrids will look like black but i expect roughly half to look like white... Counting spines right now seems like it's maybe more of a challenge than it would be worth..There's some small chance that i swapped the bags and mislabeled them but they are in different tanks and until they get older and i know for sure we will call the first image black crappie and the second image hybrid crappie.


Black Crappie



Hybrid Crappie


b) I put the crappie into two 100 gallon stock tanks. This is a temporary home for a month or two while i feed train them. once it warms up and my second outdoor aquaponics ferro tank is complete , they will go outside.



I am using a makeshift filter out of an air stone, a strainer and some substrate from my aquaponics grow beds . The gravel should already have plentiful nitrifying bacteria already living on it. I should avoid the ammonia and nitrite spike that happens during a new aquarium "cycling". However, if there is a mini-cycle I have the ability to do frequent partial water changes with the outdoor aquaponics system which is over 1000 gallons and fully stabilized, same PH, etc. I would have to consider temperature differences when determining the amount of water i can change at a time.





c) in addition to the crappie, in each tank i have 1 pleco and 3 of the "runt" feed trained red ears from last year. Some of my feed trained red ears are 5-6" now but some are still 2-4". I picked out some of the small ones to help "teach" to eat pellets. I dont know if it's really teaching. The behavior observed is more of creating competition and I know the red ears will be aggressive feeders because i have trained them to be so...They will help with the "frenzy" that will i need to get crappie to try the commercial feed. keep in mind, I use some soaked and sinking pellets in the early stages so the pleco and red ears will help keep uneaten food from rotting in the tank.

All references to live food such as blood worms, brine shrimp or krill are frozen kinds not really "live".

The Plan:
1) I will feed twice a day as close to 11am and 11pm as possible.
2) The light in the room with the tanks stays off but I will turn it on when it is feeding time to help trigger feeding response.
3) I will start feeding them small amounts of blood worms until i notice most or all of the fish participating in feeding time. Sometimes it takes a few days to a week for fish to settle into their new home and get with the feeding schedule.
4) I will start soften up small high protein ciclid pellets (floating and sinking) by soaking them in water (with the blood worms) and increasing the pellet portion a little at a time until it's obvious that the fish are eating both indiscriminately
5) Then I will feed only soaked/soft pellets.
6) then I will switch to the same pellets not soaked

Some other thoughts that i consider and sometimes tinker with.
-Crappie feed by sight and can easily distinguish a blood worm from a pellet. Sometimes i find that it helps if i mix other food sources of different shapes in because it seems to help them be less strict about the way something looks before they taste it.

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Sounds like a very good well thought out plan, please keep us posted on what works and what doesn't. I'm look forward to hearing progress reports. smile

Quote:
2) The light in the room with the tanks stays off but I will turn it on when it is feeding time to help trigger feeding response.


With my RES I have been turning off the filters when I feed bloodworms as the feeding trigger. Once the bloodworms have been cleaned up I turn the filters back on. I do this more for the practical purpose of keeping bloodworms from being sucked into the filters before they are all eaten.



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With lighting for fish IMO and CB1's experience it is best if low lighting is used. Sometimes it is best to not keep the fish in total darkness but in full moon light brightness for the dark period. Very dim light is good esp at first turn on. Then the light can be increased gradually to a brighter dim. Good luck on this project. A lot of the members are interested in your experiences. Please keep us updated. We will learn together.

Some have had success getting hesitant fish to first eat artificial by using current to move the food to simulate it as living.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 03/08/14 10:09 AM.

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Some have had success getting hesitant fish to first eat artificial by using current to move the food to simulate it as living.


Interesting Bill, I should qualify my previous post by saying that I turn off just my two filters that have mechanical foam filters in place so they don't catch the bloodwroms moving around. I still have my under gravel filters running when I feed bloodworms so there is a reduced current moving the bloodworns around.



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This will be interesting to follow!


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I will be interested to follow this too. I would try three times a day if I were you at least until they get bigger. At least that is my experience with bluegills and yellow perch of that size. Once the above species got to about 8 inches I went to twice a day.

As you are probably aware do not handle them more than necessary. Crappie are very sensitive to handling and stress. Notice the frayed tail on one of the crappies in your picture? That happens very easily.

The University of Wisconsin was successful in feed training them as was a trout hatchery in Northern Wisconsin I bought some from. Unfortunately a high percentage died from a fungal infection in my holding pond due to rough handling after hauling (The idiot that netted them put several hundred in a net that probably crushed many of them), and placing them in the hauling tank with larger trout. They probably got beat around a lot in the tank by the larger fish sloshing around.

Surprisingly the trout farm told me initially they put them in a tank with small trout and they all fed on the pellets almost immediately.

Keep us posted!


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
With lighting for fish IMO and CB1's experience it is best if low lighting is used. Sometimes it is best to not keep the fish in total darkness but in full moon light brightness for the dark period. Very dim light is good esp at first turn on. Then the light can be increased gradually to a brighter dim. Good luck on this project. A lot of the members are interested in your experiences. Please keep us updated. We will learn together.


to clarify... the room is my living room. it has windows with curtains so it is not pitch black.. just no direct light.. and the light trigger is just my dinning room 3x60 watt bulbs... not a spotlight on the tanks or anything...

Originally Posted By: Bill Cody

Some have had success getting hesitant fish to first eat artificial by using current to move the food to simulate it as living.


I believe this to be completely true. These 100 gallon stock tanks are the exact strategy i used on my red ears last year but i also had a dozen 4" black crappie that i was trying to feed train in a separate 55 gallon aquarium... They would not eat anything but blood worms.. not even frozen krill.. or live red wiggler worms... i wasnt feeding them enough blood worms to sustain them (the cost adds up).. Over time some died and in dec i was down to 4 left... at which time i gave up.. i needed tank space to move some sick red ears and bluegill indoors from my outside tank so i moved some of the red ears and a couple of blue gill into the tank.. salted to kill the fungus infection they were developing and decide i would just mix pellets and blood worms and krill until i ran out and if they didnt learn to eat pellets they would just starve..(keep in mind the fish have been malnurished for a year and are no bigger than they were when i bought them last year)

anyway.. long story summary, the crappie have now learned to take krill and even pellets.. Their color is coming back and they are starting to not be paper thin anymore.. I dont consider them completely feed trained yet because they will pas son some pellets and then attack other ones.. i am not sure exactly what they need to see to decide a pellet is or is not food but i hunch it may be the movement caused by the red ear's... i did a short video of todays feeding to show whats going on.. there's two bg, four black crappie and teh rest are red ears.. notice they have no problems eating from the surface.

-edit- also they were really timid becaus eth dog was running around going nuts.. they are usually more happy to see me and more aggressive.



Last edited by bcotton; 03/08/14 02:07 PM.
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Originally Posted By: bcotton


to clarify... the room is my living room. it has windows with curtains so it is not pitch black.. just no direct light.. and the light trigger is just my dinning room 3x60 watt bulbs... not a spotlight on the tanks or anything...


Holy Cow I thought my wife was understanding! shocked


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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by living room, i mean dining room, but there's no mrs.

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Originally Posted By: bcotton
by living room, i mean dining room, but there's no mrs.



That explains it! grin


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Yes it does... I am pushing the limits by hanging a few deer heads on our walls in the family room. HAHA

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Already had a bit of an obstacle. I did water tests this morning and Ammonia was at 2ppm and nitrites at 1ppm in the hybrid tank... the black crappie tank was .25 and .25 which is expected as the bacteria adjusts to the new bioload. I attribute the high reading son the hyrbid tank to the fact i took that substrate from the top areas of the grow beds and i guess it didnt have as much bacteria as i thought. I have added more substrate from under the water line and done a couple of partial water changes today... the ammonia and nitrites are about half what they were before.. i will skip feeding tonight and recheck water in the morning.

I had already salted both tanks with 20 tablespoons of salt... since the water change i added additional 20 tablespoons of salt to the hybrid tank only.

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I will be curious to see what % of fish you lose due to starvation and if the hybrids are more likely to take to feed than the blacks.

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Originally Posted By: CJBS2003
Yes it does... I am pushing the limits by hanging a few deer heads on our walls in the family room. HAHA


I've got the perfect set up for an Elk or Moose on the fireplace, log walls for bear rugs, cathedral ceiling, and I can do the mounts myself. etc., etc. no dice. frown

The wife even hates antler chandeliers. I'm like what is wrong with you?


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Originally Posted By: bcotton
Already had a bit of an obstacle. I did water tests this morning and Ammonia was at 2ppm and nitrites at 1ppm in the hybrid tank... the black crappie tank was .25 and .25 which is expected as the bacteria adjusts to the new bioload. I attribute the high reading son the hyrbid tank to the fact i took that substrate from the top areas of the grow beds and i guess it didnt have as much bacteria as i thought. I have added more substrate from under the water line and done a couple of partial water changes today... the ammonia and nitrites are about half what they were before.. i will skip feeding tonight and recheck water in the morning.

I had already salted both tanks with 20 tablespoons of salt... since the water change i added additional 20 tablespoons of salt to the hybrid tank only.


Good luck. The good thing about fish in the sunfish family is they are more tolerant than most species to nitrites and your salt will prevent brown blood even if it is an issue. It doesn't take much salt to do that btw. Hopefully you won't have to do too many water changes before you biofiltration adapts.


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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My wife knew what she was getting herself into when she married me... I still try not to push the issue too much though.

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Originally Posted By: CJBS2003
My wife knew what she was getting herself into when she married me... I still try not to push the issue too much though.


Actually my wife is pretty open minded and I have a lot of freedom. I just don't push it either as I do have a taxidermy studio. A good way to have marital problems is have an attitude of my way or the highway. Big trouble!


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
A good way to have marital problems is have an attitude of my way or the highway. Big trouble!


Not to mention that the highway isn't that far away!!


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bcotton, everyone asked my questions! Good luck with your system and changing some water with new water won't hurt. I used well water and just a little rock salt. Fish did excellent till the kids knocked the pump plug out of the socket... Grrrr cry.

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Originally Posted By: esshup
Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
A good way to have marital problems is have an attitude of my way or the highway. Big trouble!


Not to mention that the highway isn't that far away!!


A short walk down the driveway! blush grin


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Originally Posted By: CJBS2003
I will be curious to see what % of fish you lose due to starvation and if the hybrids are more likely to take to feed than the blacks.


If i lose any i dont think it will be to starvation. If the water is adjusted today i will start feeding again. Granted i dont know how long they were kept by the supplier without feeding, but they are still getting acclimated to their new surroundings and most havent started to take the blood worms yet anyway.

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Originally Posted By: bcotton
Originally Posted By: CJBS2003
I will be curious to see what % of fish you lose due to starvation and if the hybrids are more likely to take to feed than the blacks.


If i lose any i dont think it will be to starvation. If the water is adjusted today i will start feeding again. Granted i dont know how long they were kept by the supplier without feeding, but they are still getting acclimated to their new surroundings and most havent started to take the blood worms yet anyway.



Ahh, thnking back, i think i misunderstood.. you mean starvation over the course of feed training.. and i am too.

I am curious if one seems to feed train easier and i am also curious how much faster hybrid grow than black... at least that's the rumor, right?

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today the hybrid tank is at .5 ammonia and 0 nitrites, the black crappie tank is at .5 and .25.

Since i dont work today, it's 70 degrees outside and the outside tank is getting good sun, i decided to resume feeding and just recheck this afternoon and do partial water changes if necessary since the temp shouldnt be too big of a swing.

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Originally Posted By: bcotton
today the hybrid tank is at .5 ammonia and 0 nitrites, the black crappie tank is at .5 and .25.

Since i dont work today, it's 70 degrees outside and the outside tank is getting good sun, i decided to resume feeding and just recheck this afternoon and do partial water changes if necessary since the temp shouldnt be too big of a swing.



What's your PH to calculate unionized ammonia?

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 03/10/14 03:54 PM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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So, are any of the crappie eating the blood worms?


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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the expanded shale substrate i have buffers my ph at about 8

yes some of them are, the blood worms are getting eaten, but they havent really figured out where they are coming from yet..they just smell them and find them after a couple of minutes.. i need them to be excited and attack them as soon as they hit the water.. it will probably take a couple of weeks.


no deaths yet, so i feel that any casualties at this point, i cannot blame on stress/travel.

BCP tank is 1.0 ammonia and .25 nitrite this afternoon.. i am going to do a partial water change with the outside aquaponics and add some more substrate

Hybrid tank is .5 ammonia and .25 nitrites. I will not do a water change right now but i will check water again late tonight/early tomorrow and expect i may need to then

While i wasnt expecting cycling problems, this isnt out of the ordinary and having a strategy of how to deal with this without overly stressing the fish or killing them is super important (assuming anyone ever tries to reproduce this experiment)


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I have been alternating water changes between the two tanks but today i water change in both.. the water chemistry is about the same in both tanks (before water change) , ~.75-1 ammonia and .25 nitrite.

I had my first loss today... a hybrid.. He wasnt completely dead when i saw him but he's an obvious goner... at a glance i dont see any other fish with this ailment but i would be fooling myself to think none of the others have it. The fish that dont start eating something will probably get sick and die like this... Most of the fish are eating blood worms and brine shrimp and the few pellets i sprinkle in seem to get eaten.... but i do have a handful of feed trained red ear so i dont know for sure if the crappie are trying pellets or not.. it's too early to care tbh.




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Bcotton, is that a fungus? or did your HBC get smashed/injured somehow?

How is your water temp?

RES seem to be more prone to fungal infections when the water temp is below 55 degrees.



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Lots of warm water fish species are more prone to fungus in colder water when they are injured, stressed and not eating. It is not uncommon. Many of the small fish that get this are eaten by larger fish early in the fungal development.

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Lots of warm water fish species are more prone to fungus in colder water when they are injured, stressed and not eating. It is not uncommon. Many of the small fish that get this are eaten by larger fish early in the fungal development.


as always... spot on with my limited experience.. these losses are not uncommon when doing what i am doing. I am not worried and sticking to plan... my thermometer says 62 degrees and this is less than 2 hours after a 70% water change. My house temp is around 70 so the temp isnt exactly bouncing back up, just staying in the low to mid 60's... with water changes every other day the water temp has been staying down.. this is not ideal but i dont expect it is excessively stressful..

i just finished filling my new outdoor grow bed with new substrate and re-arranging my fish tanks... so i now have an empty tank and i am considering lighten-ing the fish load in each indoor tank by 25-30 fish in both tanks and moving the excess to an outdoor tank. This would allow me to focus back on the main objective and stop messing with the water temperature to keep chemistry safe... i dont think the water changes are a big cause of stress but it's not no stress.

on the other hand.. many of the fish are getting less scared of me and some of them seem to understand that when they see me there is a high probability of blood worms spontaneously appearing.

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I think it was just too many little fish for the filtration, but i guess there is some possibility i was going through a mini-cycle.

anyway, Got tired of water changes every day and limiting feed, so i waited for the cold front to come through last sunday... it was short lived because monday was highs back in the 70's.. so then monday put a couple of IBC's inline to my outdoor aquaponics system and moved the crappie outside.

In the move i confirmed now new deaths.. so the picture above is the only death.. they look healthy though emaciate skinny.


The move does make them shy so i am kind of starting over there but i've started feeding blood worms twice a day again.

I'll try to get some good pictures in the next week.
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You obviously didn't have enough biofiltration judging by your readings or your system wasn't mature and fully cycled. Add that to a species that is so sensitive to handling that some haulers won't even handle them until nightfall and you had your work cut out for you. Unfortunately crappie are not as foregiving as tilapia. Been there done that with some crappie that were hauled to me in the same tank as 2 to 3 pound rainbows and browns. Beat to hell and ended up with 99 percent mortality due to massive and acute fungal issues. It didn't help a trout club volunteer dipped a full net of them all at once probably crushing half of them. He grabbed the net before I could say anything.

Although I have an aquaponics system in the summer, I'm a big believer in a dedicated separate biofilter to augment my aquaponics system (mbbr in a blue barrel) using mb3 media that is kept alive 24/7 365 days a year in one of my overwintering systems. This way there are no worries about getting a cycle going again or anoxic zones in a media based aquaponic system.

Interesting thing about shutting down biofiltration and cranking it up again: a PHD down the road that produces hybrid striped bass, said one year he shut down some of his rbc's
and when he cranked them back up he had a hell of a time with morbidity and mortalities. Said he finally realized the heterothrophs had taken up shop in his filters and were outcompeting his autothrophs due to the shutdown stagnant anoxic enviroment that favored the heterothrophs. Since they multiply much more rapidly than the autotrophs he had issues. He told me if I ever shut down a biofilter it's better to sterialize it and start over.

Btw that one fish with it's caudal fin and peduncle area missing was probably already hit by an aeromonas infection first, probably A. Hydrophilia which is known for eating into a fish's flesh. Probably gained access via an injury and stress and the fungus was the secondary invader feeding on the dead material.

Food for thought: the above bacteria is found naturally in the water and the same genus species as the renowned flesh eating bacteria of humans. However just like the fish, people with compromised immune systems are usually the most susceptible that exposedan open wound in the water. That and hospitals with antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 03/21/14 01:15 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
Interesting thing about shutting down biofiltration and cranking it up again: a PHD down the road that produces hybrid striped bass, said one year he shut down some of his rbc's
and when he cranked them back up he had a hell of a time with morbidity and mortalities. Said he finally realized the heterothrophs had taken up shop in his filters and were outcompeting his autothrophs due to the shutdown stagnant anoxic enviroment that favored the heterothrophs. Since they multiply much more rapidly than the autotrophs he had issues. He told me if I ever shut down a biofilter it's better to sterilize it and start over.


Biofilters 101 wink
You need to keep them working healthy, otherwise you'll run into trouble.

I'm surprised your PHD didn't pick up on this fundamental requirement.

Your filtration system is the primary Heartbeat.

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
With lighting for fish IMO and CB1's experience it is best if low lighting is used. Sometimes it is best to not keep the fish in total darkness but in full moon light brightness for the dark period. Very dim light is good esp at first turn on. Then the light can be increased gradually to a brighter dim. Good luck on this project. A lot of the members are interested in your experiences. Please keep us updated. We will learn together.


If you don't know anything about lighting for the application, it's probably best to go with with your current situation and run with it.

Dimmer switches are going to start at > than 10% with the click. You need some custom circuitry in front of the best ballasts available to start at zero and then you can shove a 0-10V Analog signal to it.

If you require light, which you should, just use incandescent bulbs.

Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Some have had success getting hesitant fish to first eat artificial by using current to move the food to simulate it as living.


Not a simulation, but a stimulation!
Upwelling currents will keep the feed suspended for a short time to get a natural response to go after whats in front of them. Hopefully you are using high quality stuff for feed training picky fish.

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'Simulate' - to mimic, imitate or represent something; to put on a false appearance of, pretend, also, to act like, look like. Simulation creates a stimulation.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 03/22/14 09:52 AM. Reason: enhanced

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Sorry for the lack of updates. I moved them outside for a couple of months and this weekend i moved them into a new garage "hatchery" aquaponics system. I have been inconsistent with feeding. Sometimes only once day. They have good feed aggression and come to the top when they see me, but most of them have tried pellets and just much prefer the taste of blood worm.

The feed training hasnt been going well. A few will eat pellets. Sometimes i feed only blood worms, sometimes a mix of blood worms and soaked pellets and sometimes only soaked pellets. A few will eat pellets. I believe if started feeding only pellets today, maybe 15-20 hyrbid crappie would avoid starvation and maybe 10 black crappie.

I had only lost 1 of each fish type before this weekend but the rough handling stress of the move i have lost about 12 of each leaving me at about 50 bc and and about 60 hybrid crappie. I have only lost the weak ones that arent eating any pellets and seem to just be bad at getting blood worms.

Some of the crappie are growing a little and obviously more healthy than the others.

My 5 black crappie from last year didnt start eating pellets until i moved the feed trained red ear into the tank so i am considering getting a couple of dozen 2" blue gill to add the the tanks to improve food competition.

It's not happening as fast as i had hoped but i plan to continue to be persistent until i succeed.


This was a feeding from april


A feeding in my new indoor system. They are a little shy they have only been in there for a couple of days


a tour of the indoor system

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The crappie have been indoors in their new 55 gallon barrel tanks for barely a week and they are taking to the commercial feed a lot more readily. I cant say for certain why. Maybe the aeration is moving the pellets enough to trigger their predatory instinct. Maybe the close quarters are increasing the competition improving feed aggression. Either way, this seems like the winning combo.






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Nice thread, I will be watching for updates. Where do you get blood worms?

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
'Simulate' - to mimic, imitate or represent something; to put on a false appearance of, pretend, also, to act like, look like. Simulation creates a stimulation.


Hey Bill, I'll give ya that one!

Boy, I haven't been keeping up!

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Originally Posted By: bcotton


The crappie have been indoors in their new 55 gallon barrel tanks for barely a week and they are taking to the commercial feed a lot more readily. I cant say for certain why. Maybe the aeration is moving the pellets enough to trigger their predatory instinct. Maybe the close quarters are increasing the competition improving feed aggression. Either way, this seems like the winning combo.


You are crowding them more and that will help. I'll have to watch the video again, but it looks like you're having fun!

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Crowding definitely makes a difference from my experience with bluegill, yellow perch, and smallmouth bass anyway. Also raising the water temp will make them more hungry.

I presently have 200 tilapia and 100 bluegill fingerlings in an indoor 150 gallon cone bottom tank and they go crazy on feed 5 to 6 times a day. Water temp is 80 F. The bluegill are actually more aggressive feeders probably because they are slightly larger. However the tilapia should catch up and probably pass them at some point.

My outdoor aquaponics is on hold as I accidentally put a couple of holes in my dura-skrim liner in the raft tank. Had to order a special epoxy to patch it.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 05/28/14 04:32 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
My outdoor aquaponics is on hold as I accidentally put a couple of holes in my dura-skrim liner in the raft tank. Had to order a special epoxy to patch it.


Really good duct tape, fixes just about everything! grin

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I was tempted to try duct tape but was concerned it would break down under water eventually.


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duct tape when water is involved, not so much blush
you've made me rething my restocking plans brian.. gonna mix 50/50 yp with crappie (probably throw in a few bg to help feed train)...
maybe a few tilapia to breed some feed as well, since i only had to add some heat in the basement in the deepest part of one of our worst winters to keep the blue's and niles going
and i'll start the small fish off in the single tote system before moving them to the pool (i'm going to try to "fill" it with rosy reds and marmokrebs before transfer)...
i've got i think 5 bg left from my original stocking in 2010, and while they're the smallest in the pool, they are the most aggressive feeders.. that includes a few 3+lb tilapia and a good range of yp from 8" to 14" or so
oh.. and the greenwater.. you're right, my bottles didn't work, but kitty litter buckets worked very well, with a small air stone with very low flow, white buckets worked better than yellow for me

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All you guys need to join us on the Aquaponics Nation website. Lot's of good discussion from people from all over the world.


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I've decided i will stop using blood worms when i finish the package i have currently opened. It will be by gone the end of the week at which time i will only feed soaked pellets. I feel good that most are eating the pellets anyway. In a month I'll have a good idea of the number of crappie out of the original 130 or so that i was able to feed train because they will be the only fish alive.


mr hello,
i buy the frozen blood worms you find in the fish food freezer at chain pet stores. I use whichever brand is cheapest or on sale at the time, there's a few. Blood worms arent nutritious enough to be an only food source but it's the one thing small enough that they seem to all want to eat. Ive tried frozen krill, dried krill and live meal worms but they are too big. Anything you can get them to eat that you can source in sufficient quantities should work. The blood worms is just really to domesticate them. Get them to trust you, come to the surface when they see you and to compete over the food you throw in.


cecil, i punctured the pond liner on of my wooden grow beds 2 years ago by dropping my power drill bit first into the bottom of it. I had good success patching it with a small swatch of pond liner glued in with pvc cement. Its held for two years now with no leaks. I have used this technique probably a half a dozen time since.. there's a side to one of my grow beds where half the pond liner edge is missing 4x4" cutouts.

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Brian,

What was the liner made up?

This is polyethylene which is allegedly difficult to get something to bind to it.

Here's the liner I bought which is three layers interwoven for strength. It's also white to keep it cool.

http://alliedaqua.com/dura-skrim-r20ww-geosynthetic-liner-for-aquaponics-aquaculture-and-ponds.html


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Look, all I know about crappies is that they are fun to catch and I don't want them in my hoped-for pond.

However, when I saw the pic of the fungus, I couldn't help but think about what Bob Lusk told me: Salt is deliberately added to the water when transporting live fish because it seems to keep them healthier.

Wonder if deliberately increasing salt content, at least moderately, might have helped?


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Salt definitely helps with hauling by keeping the fish in osmotic balance and stimulating mucous production but once the fungus or bacterial infection gets going it usually too late.


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Thanks for the info, Cecil! So maybe it would have helped, but only if added before the problems came up. Interesting what a newbie like me can learn here!


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anthropic,
I did add salt and documented such in at least one of the posts in this thread.

I usually salt my nursery tanks to 3ppt (parts per thousand) but i try not to salt my aquaponics systems because some plants like strawberries and even tomatoes dont care for it. The fact i only lost two of 130 fish after transporting them 4 hours from lousiana where i met a fish truck that came from arkansas is outstanding results.

The fact is he was probably damaged at some point, maybe I crushed him a little when i set bag in the cooler for transport.

In addition to helping the immune system, salt also helps the fish breathe if the water is high in nitrites which was also happening.

Cecil, i used a home depot brand pond liner (total pond). I guess it's some sort of pvc so maybe that method wouldnt work for you.

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Brian,

Yes salt will alleviate nitrite issues too. Forgot about that.

Did you see how closely fit the dura-skrim will fit in a tank at the link I posted? You can't do that with EPDM. A heat gun will soften it up too.

PVC liner. Sounds interesting.


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The local aquaponics enthusiasts seem to be moving to the duraskim liners. The pvc based liner i just fold it like i am wrapping a christmas present, it's not going to mold or shape.

I am moving away from wood and pond liner grow beds. Between humidity, termites and general age, even pressure treated lumber doesnt have a long life here. This is one of the reason i started doing ferrocement.

The two i already built are on the agenda to be emptied, lowered and filled with soil to grow soil based plants like onions and carrots in traditional raised grow bed style.

My first ferro fish tank and grow bed didnt turn out as aesthetically pleasing as I was hoping but i learned a lot and the next two should be a huge improvement. Barring a sledgehammer or act of God, I expect them to outlive me.



These arent up to date pictures but you get the idea.




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Damn Brian! I'm impressed! You should share this on the Aquaponics Nation website!


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Wow! You aren't playing around, are you?

Brian, if memory serves, a decade or two ago there was serious research into whether crappie could be raised like tilapia or catfish. Turned out they could. Unfortunately, the government nixed the idea because they were afraid that it would be impossible to tell the difference between wild caught and farmed.

That probably means you are on the right track, that crappie can be feed trained. Good luck!


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Cecil, i share on byap. i can only keep up with one aquaponics forum and one aquaculture forum... and sometimes it's tough to keep up with only two.

if i ever get too belligerent and banned from byap, i'll be sure to try AN out.

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Back to crowding to get a better competitive feeding response:

I had a dog once that would eat something she didn't like if I pretended I wanted it. LOL

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 05/29/14 07:25 PM.

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Originally Posted By: bcotton
Cecil, i share on byap. i can only keep up with one aquaponics forum and one aquaculture forum... and sometimes it's tough to keep up with only two.

if i ever get too belligerent and banned from byap, i'll be sure to try AN out.



AN is a much better site than any other aquaponics site! :-)

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 05/30/14 08:39 AM.

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Starting may 26 i have been feeding the crappie only softened commercial feed. So it's been a month, I think it's time for a results report.

I should also mention there has been a new crappie paper posted on SRAC and it covers feed training hybrid crappie. This would have been good information a couple of months ago when i started this https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/277/
The article claim successful feed training in 7 days. That may be possible if i had crowded them from the beginning, it's hard to say and a worthy goal for next year. They also claim the hybrid crappie will not eat from the surface but in my experience neither black nor hybrid had problems eating pellet from the surface.


Since i have only been placing commercial feed into the fish tanks for a month it is easy to pick out which fish are eating commercial feed and which are not. Here's some pictures to show what i mean.



It's easy to tell from above that a fish hasnt been eating commercial. He is emaciated. The body is thin and the head is much wider than the body.


Here is a top view of the healthy/feed trained black crappie. The body width is at least as wide as the head.



Top view of the feed trained/healthy hybrid crappie. Hybrid crappie are a lot more aggressive and the ones taking pellets are growing faster than the black.


here's a side picture of 5 hybrid crappie. 4 healthy fish and 1 emaciated/starving fish.


*all counting was done by hand and subject to human error and forgetting what number i am on, heh. But reasonably accept that they could be inaccurate within + or - 3 to 4 fish on any count.

I started with
60 black
70 hybrid

Ended with
42 feed trained Black
40 feed trained hybrid
8 emaciated black
10 emaciated hybrid


Findings
1) using lighting to trigger feed aggression was not necessary. The fish got accustomed to seeing me and that is trigger enough
2) I thought the ciclid pellets would be a better transition feed because of the small diameter and high protein but the fish seemed to like the larger diameter aquamax 400 more than the expensive pet store bought alternative
3) Early on, when aggressive fish try commercial feed for the first time, the were much more likely to spit out hard/dry commercial pellets and to swallow softer/pre-soaked pellets. However, It's only necessary to soak the pellets enough to make them soft. They dont need to be falling apart. 5-10 minutes is ideal. If you soak them too long they seem to break up when the fish try to swallow them and they sometimes cough up food chunks.
4) Crowding the fish is very important to feed training.
5) Warm water temperature could help with feed aggression but inconclusive based on the nature of my process.
6) Surface agitation that moves the pellets seems to help identify the pellet as food.


Possible reasons for error:
1) I moved the fish twice into three different size/shape tanks which at a minimum delayed the feed training.
2) the black crappie were in an opaque blue container as opposed to the hybrid which were in a more translucent white container.

Other thoughts and ramblings:
1) Despite the final numbers The hybrid crappie took to feed training more than the black crappie. The healthy feed trained hybrids are bigger, plumper and healthier looking than the black. When i handled all of the fish to count them they became stresses and shy. Withing 24 hours the hyrbids were coming back to the surface of the barrel to take food but it took the black crappie a couple of days and they are still not attacking and consuming the volume of pellets the hybrids are.
2) Expanding on Findings #1 AND #6: I kept an air stone in each tank that provided good aeration and surface agitation. On a few occasions, i would drop a teaspoon of pellets into a tank. The fish would attack the pellets and i would walk away. I would come back 10-15 minutes later to check for uneaten food and there would be a few pellets floating near the side not moving. But when the fish saw me, they would attack the pellets that were sitting there. Movement or the "trigger" can be a good way to initiate feed aggression.
3) i was surprised at how many non-feed trained crappie lived for a month without substantial food.. It was a new aquaponics system so there wasnt an established algae, snail or zooplankton colonies. I can only assume they were living off of filter feeding but overall truly amazing.


What now?
1) I moved both the hybrid and the black into white barrel tanks and i continue to feed them commercial feed. Over the next month i will move to only dry feed.
2) i moved the emaciated black and hybrid fish into a spare ibc tank and i have resumed feeding them blood worms and frozen krill. if i can get some of them to take pellets cool but i dont have high expectations since i dont have a "crowding" tank available. I had some leftover supplies but when they run out the untrained fish will become LMB and channel cat food in my outdoor aquaponics system.
3) Based on my article reading about crappie i am curious if white crappie may be a better option for aquaponics. They seem to prefer smaller bodies of water, turbid water (air stones!) and tolerate/like? less ideal water conditions. Again reproduction is not a problem in a 300-1000 gallon fish tank because fry cannot easily escape from predation.
4) i plan to do another feed train experiment next year. Hopefully I can find a source for white crappie to perform side by side comparison with black and hybrid.
5) my "bluegill spawn in 100 gallon aquarium" thread should be renamed "spawning sunfish in an aquarium" because next year(or the next) when the black crappie are mature, I will start working with spawning them using the technique(s) i am learning and developing reproducing bluegill and red eared sunfish.
6) if i am able to spawn and feed train any type of crappie in captivity, my aquaponics will become pretty much a monoculture for crappie. I may grow out a few channel cats or HSB as specialty, change of scenery but It will be mostly crappie.









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Very good reporting and analysis - nice work - keep it up. We are all learning from your experiences. Thanks a lot for sharing.


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Thanks,

This forum provided me with so much help and information on how to work with native fish in RAS/aquaponics, I am glad i could contribute some.


Brian

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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.



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Very cool bcotton.


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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Some of those crappies are getting some good growth in.

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I may have to give give hatching and feed training crappies a try one year. If I could sex them after growing them out in one of my ras' and then plant, one sex in the trophy bluegill and yellow perch pond, there woukd definitely be a market for large crappies in the taxidermy market.

My problem is I only have two hatching ponds if I continue to grow out the trout in the third 1/10th acre pond. Probably won't get the pole building up for the trout until next year, :-(

Good job Brian!


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I just noticed my picture links are broken. That is unintentional. I will fix that sometime this week. the pictures are still online its just a dns issue.

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bcotton- have you found one commercial pellet better than the others in respect to black crappies taking to it readily.

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Hey guys, its been a while but i am still working with aquaponics and native fish and doing what "they say" is impossible.

I have been feed training black crappie again this spring. With even better results than before. I am working on a more detailed video but just wanted to show off my progress and tease a little.. feel free to ask questions it will help me make sure i address what people want to know when i make the more complete video.



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Very cool report.


Nicely done and can't wait for the more in depth video.


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Thanks for the update. Your current progress is very promising and will be eagerly received by many members. We look forward to more of your experiences and good information.

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Well done Brian.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

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I am still a while away from a complete report but i do have an update.

in the 100 gallon aquarium i had 100 bcp, 100bg, and 100 channel cats all in the 1-1.5" range. Last week i moved the fish outside and counted 31 BCP. They looked healthy as in they looked like they have been eating. (they have been in the aquarium for almost 3 months)

I moved the 31 BCP to my outdoor 700 gallon ferrocement tank in my aquaponics. I want to see how they do now without the crowding and without the bluegill competition.

I also had a 100 gallon stock tank with 100 bcp and 100 bg. From this tank i only counted 17 BCP. These too looked very healthy. I moved these 17 BCP into the now vacant aquarium, so i can do a smaller version of the same ferrocement test but i can see them better.

All of the bluegill went into an outdoor 1250 gallon fish tank in my aquaponics dedicated to bluegill and RES. I estimate that tank has around 400 fish total now. All of the channel cats went into a separate outdoor 1250 gallon aquapinic fish tank dedicated to channel catfish. there is between 150 and 200 channel cats in there now.


I was a little bit disappointed in these results. I felt like i was getting a much higher percentage of feed training but i guess not. The next stage is to see how well they retain the feed training when no longer crowded. Of course if they dont do well not crowded. I am in a situation that i could keep crappie crowded with res and bluegill their whole life.

The first two pictures are of bcp and bluegill from the 100 gallon tanks (when i was moving them outside). Most of the bcp are in the 3-5" range. It does look like the bluegill are outperforming them in growth

The second two pictures is of the last two bcp i have alive from my first feed training experiment along with a feed trained res.




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Its really just more of the same. I keep trying to improve the water quality and the video quality so you can see the crappie and see them eating commercial feed.

in this tank there's about 17 black crappie and 4 little stunted cc's. I like to keep the cc's in there to clean up the bottom... The crappie will eat commercial feed while its falling or while its floating but not once it settles on the bottom. So i like to have something to try to help keep the water from fowling

i just get so tickled when i see them eating commercial feed like any other domesticated fish


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Brian, you do a lot of interesting stuff that can't be done.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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Brian, in lieu of crowding to create competition have you tried feeding much smaller amounts of food, but in more frequent intervals? The idea is to keep it competitive for the next meal without the crowding.



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i do try as much as possible to feed frequently. especially in the early days/weeks. My thinking is you need to give the crappie as much opportunity as possible to see/react to the bluegill feeding/competition.

On weekends i would sprinkle a few pellets into the tank pretty much every time i thought about it.. which would be about every 2 hours or so. on weekdays i would do one feeding before work, one when i got home and one before bed so roughly 4-8 hours between feedings. An automatic feeder would be better but its not necessary as you can see. You may have better results with it, i am sure there's still lots of room for improvement as this is still only my second successful bcp feed training experiment.


The bluegill and catfish help process excess food and really theres only a couple of things i havent covered.

1) You have to have a lot of filtration to process the ammonia and nitrites. The system ****MUST MUST MUST**** ALREADY be cycled and mature before adding the fish. With small diameter feed and powders it is very difficult to keep the water clean. I have 1 radial flow filter , 1 settling tank, 3 MBBR filters with approx 9 cu ft of k1 type media(each). And the water was still so fowl i couldnt even see the fish in there. But the water chemistry was fine.. ammonia and nitrites stayed low and i had to sometimes add lime to keep the PH from plummeting.

All filters were DIY from blue barrels. I did add a sand filter during the trial to help catch the really fine suspended particles and it did help a lot.


2) you need to source healthy fish. This is what i find to be the absolute most challenging part of feed training crappie is finding healthy fish. I find that acquiring healthy black crappie from even the best, most reputable pond stocking suppliers and fish farms to be a complete crap shoot. These same farms have always provided me with healthy channel cats, bg, hsb, res, and LMB.. but crappie are different and the quality is never consistent. Maybe someone more knowledgeable on the process can correct anything i am about to say or offer some good advice but here's how i understand it.

A week or more before the order/delivery is to be done(with all fish types not just crappie) .. the fish farm will seine their pond and put the fish in a holding tank. I say a week ore more, because i think its likely it is often much longer than 1 week. Why seine the pond each week for the orders due that weekend? Wouldnt we just seine the whole pond, have the fish on standby in the holding tank as orders come in? they could be there two, three, four ,five, more weeks? They withhold feed because the "fish travel better on an empty stomach" [and i am sure there is something to do with not producing ammonia in the travelling tanks. but i digress] Then on delivery day the fish are loaded onto a truck and taken to their destination. If a BG is in a holding tank and isnt sold... they can just feed it some commercial pellets and keep it healthy for next week... this doesnt seem to be done with crappie. So anyway. I call ahead to my pond stocking place.. i find out what day they get black crappie and i go within a couple of days of their delivery to get my fish. Sometimes they are healthy, sometimes they arent. And when feed training.. you MUST START WITH HEALTHY FISH. Black crappie like other fish are filter feeders. When they get to a certain stage of starvation they STOP HUNTING. They use as little energy as possible and just try to live off of plankton in the water by catching it in their gills. They *MIGHT* survive in a pond setting doing this but not in a concentrated RAS. As far as i am concerned... fish in this state are DOA.

I'd me remiss if i didnt also mention that crappie stress easily in handling and i am sure this is a factor as well.

I could go on.. i have twice gone to the fish farm themselves (which is a very long out of state drive.) One time i got great healthy fish... the other time all 200 were already starving and died withing a couple of days. I went the next week to a more local pond stocking place (who gets their bcp from the same farm) and these fish were much healthier. I still lost about half the fish in the first 3-4 days which to me is from stress and handling as opposed to refusing to feed train. Typically a healthy fish refusing to feed train will take a couple of weeks to die in which i had only a handful of deaths after the first week.


Anyway, i apologize for so many words and i know they arent well organized. its just a brain dump that i can read later so i hopefully dont forget anything and you are welcome to read it (or not)

brian















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Brian, thank you so much for sharing all this! For those of us with BCP containing ponds, I think this information is rare and valuable. I wish I was closer to your experiment, so I could offer some crappie from our pond for your use, but it's a long way between Iowa and Texas!


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Brian, are you hydrating your feed?

I'm currently feed training six or seven dozen RES in a 75 gallon insulated aquaculture tank with an aquarium heater set at 78 degrees. They have really taken to hydrated feed (homemade optimal crumbles). I am doing a 10 to 15% daily water changes while removing mostly waste with very little uneaten food. The aquarium heater really keeps the water temp at an optimal temperature even with the frequent water changes. After 4 weeks I would say that 75% to 80% that are readily eating feed, so far no morts. I did dip a glass full of daphnia out of the pond tonight and added them to the tank, the feed trained RES ignored them while those that aren't quite there yet gobbled them up.



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unlike the first time i did not bother trying to feed them non commercial feed like bloodworms or beefheart, etc. I have only used commercial feed and i dont bother to hydrate it. I may have done so for the first week but not significantly overall.

The one thing i did do better is size the feed better for gape. As fish grow at different rates. its common for me to mix my feedings with two sizes as and of course as a process when transitioning to the larger diameter feed.

Feeds that i used (this time) are:
purina Aquamax 100
optimal Starter Feed #2
purina aquamax 300
purina aquamax 400

optimal fingerling line is significantly more expensive per lb than the purina fingerling line but the ability to buy 10lb buckets instead of 50lb bags is a nice advantage.(i also very much like the resealable/reusable buckets) The reason i am using purina so much is because the 100 was left over from last year and optimal had not yet released their fingerling starter when i NEEDED to order the next size up pellet.

Right now i do not have a recommendation on pellet type brand other than it should be "complete diet", appropriate protein/nutrients for the fish's age and the right size for the fish's gape. I do not have the infrastructure to do much in the way of side by side comparisons so i will probably never have any good data in that respect. I will say i am moving all of my feeds to optimal but i cant say that i have any reason or data to say its better than the other. Its just a decision based on peripheral reasons and personal preference.









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I started this batch of RES out on bloodworms and the homemade hydrated crumbles. One thing I have noticed about the hydrated feed is that they will eat much larger peices of the hydrated feed, I assume the softer texture is easier to swallow, if it is dry they prefer much smaller peices. I am running a mix of Optimal BG and Optimal bass through a coffee bean grinder, pouring the mix into a wire mesh strainer, then shaking it back and so the fine dust and very small peices fall out the bottom. Larger peices tend to work their way to the top of the strainer and smaller peices toward the bottom. The nice thing is that there is a nice mix of sizes to feed them. I try and sort it so I hydrate the larger sizes and put the smaller sizes in an automatic feeder that feeds them four times a day while I am gone. I do like to hydrate the crumbles then let it dry out a bit before feeding, the stuff I hydrate in the morning gets fed in the evening and vica versa. This has worked much better than my previous run at feed training RES. Give hydrated feed a try with your crappie and see if it helps.



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Just a tiny update. 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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Thanks for the update! Those CC are certainly lively! Can you give me the dimensions of that CC tank? It is probably hard to measure diameter so a distance around (circumference) or rough diameter and height would be helpful. I have a tight spot to fit a tank in and wonder the dimensions on yours.

Thanks in advance!

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its a 1250 gallon water tank from a tractor supply. its somewhere around 85-90 inches diameter and about 5 foot tall

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not a lot of updates. But i am still here. There just hasnt been a lot of interesting developments.

These are the same crappie from before.. They are in the 5-7" range now... Out of those 200 crappie i have under 20 left.

The future plans for these guys is to try to reproduce them in aquariums like i did with the bluegill and red eared sunfish (see my breading bluegill in 100 gallon aquarium thread) I will separate these into two breeding groups.. A small group of 5 or 6 will go into a 200 gallon demo system i have on my back porch ad the rest will stay in that 700 gallon ferrocement tank


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Crappie are my favorite fish. Problem being is there is not a lot of info on them. After 5 years mine still have not overpopulated as bad as the LMB have.i guess the “ It All depends” really holds true.

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Perhaps hybrid crappie will prove more suitable to ponds, as they are much less fertile.

https://www.bobluskoutdoors.com/news-updates/hybrid-crappie-small-pond-owners-dream-2018-12-4793


7ac 2015 CNBG RES FHM 2016 TP FLMB 2017 NLMB GSH L 2018 TP & 70 HSB PK 2019 TP RBT 2020 TFS TP 25 HSB 250 F1,L,RBT -206 2021 TFS TP GSH L,-312 2022 GSH TP CR TFS RBT -234, 2023 BG TP TFS NLMB, -160




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Despite the fact that you wrote such a long post, it was really interesting for me to read it. Thanks for sharing. Good luck! I have always been interested in topics related to aquariums. I think that they constantly need to be improved, as this will improve the standard of living of the fish we care for. I love my fish very much, so I am constantly improving something in their aquarium. For example, I recently purchased a new heater thanks to www.vivofish.com/best-aquarium-heater/ . The old one is already missing, since it is not very powerful. I had to work hard to find a really high quality heater, but I succeeded. I'm sure my fish like this new acquisition very much.

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Bryan is an interesting guy. He can do more in his back yard water garden than I can do in my ponds and some of them aren't supposed to work.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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