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.
