Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Redear in the Winter

Cecil I am running two Hot Magnum 250 filters, one with ceramic media in the canister, the other with with ammonia neutralizing carbon in the canister that I change once a week. Both canisters are wrapped with mechanical foam filters that I freshen up once a week. Each filter does 250 GPH and is rated for a 55 gallon aquarium.

In addition I am doing a 16-18% water change every two days and I also have undergravel filters running in the tank. Nitrites consistantly test zero but nitrates are a little on the high side.

Water temps have been running right at 70 degrees.

Sounds good Shorty but IMHO you don't need to feed these fish as much as you are, and you could get the same growth rates and get by with less water changes.

Keep in mind that's just my opinion and I'm not trying to be a know it all. You obviously have experience with the species which I don't.

Fish like people will consume more than they need and the excess gets pooped out to increase ammonia levels, which get changed to nitrites and then nitrates. You can only increase growth so much by feeding more.

The fact that you are doing close to 20 percent water changes ever two days, and still have high nitrates tells me you are overfeeding. Your nitrates should drop quite a bit with those kinds of water changes so often.

At about 0.3 lbs a piece with five 8 inch redears for a total of 1.5 lbs. of fish that's only about 0.03 lbs. per gallon in a 55 gallon tank, but like I said that's a lot of feeding.

Did you know they probably only need about 1 to 3 percent of their body weight a day for growth? Granted the fatheads have a lot of water weight but...

1.5 lbs (24 oz) at 3 percent is only about 0.72 oz per day minus the water.

Just saying and I don't claim to be some kind of authority just some experience with fish in small scale recirculating systems with excellent growth rates.

It's only five RES Cecil and I doing it primarily for entertainment and to learn more about what makes them tick.

It's been a great learning expierence and I haven't killed them yet.

Than tank is actually a 75 gallons, I also have an algea eater in with them too which doesn't help the water quality.

No problem with entertainment. And the fact that they are healthy and you haven't killed them says a lot. You would be amazed how many people can't keep fish alive or keep them from getting sick, or don't understand the nitrification cycle. It's all about the water.

I guess I'm too serious as I always look at contained systems from an RAS standpoint like pounds per gallon, capability of the biofilter, ammonia and nitrite readings, how good the mechanical filter works etc. I'm not a mathematician by any means but more and more I find myself crunching the numbers.

I want to set up a huge aquarium in my show room above my customer counter imbedded in the wall to hide everything, but my pole building and coldwater system takes priority now. When I get to the aquarium I'll know who to contact for help!

Keep up the good work!

Has there been any fighting or territorial behavior exhibited?

Yes, I have seen two very aggressive instances in the last two months. One of the instances lasted 3-4 minutes with two very "dark" colored males fighting over who got to sit on the sweet spot on top of a piece of wood. They flared their gill tabs and were pushing each other around pretty hard. It upset my wife enough that she went over and tapped on glass to put a stop to it. Once it was over the one that left the wood instantaneously went from being "dark" colored to a lighter creamy color, you could literally see the dark colored lines in its fins suck back up into its body as it went from dark color to lighter color.

I think there would be more occurrences if there were no FHM in the mix. IMO having smaller fish in the tank lets them take aggressive behavior out on the smaller fish rather than each other.

Or the fatheads are a temporary distraction from their territorial behavior? I know giving trout a current to swim against in an aquaculture setting among other benefits can reduce territorial behavior. In my trout pond I feed all around the pond so some trout do not keep others from feeding. Trout are very territorial hence the fin nipping in high density situations. Contrary to popular belief it's not the concrete raceways that cause the horrible fin stubs but it's the nipping.

As I'm sure you know unfortunately territorial behavior is a given among the sunfish species, and is stated on the NANFA website where the members put native fish in aquariums.

I've even heard of male bluegills killing a perspective female mate just because she was a new arrival regardless if she was a female and he was guarding a nest. I've had some females mysteriously float up dead in my hatchery pond just after I added the males and females to the pond. I wonder if that was it?

You could see this behavior pick up as the photoperiod increases? Or they could establish a hierarchy and be done with it?

Travis (CJBS2003) could chime and perhaps give us some more insight?


As I'm sure you're also aware territorial behavior is interesting as it varies among species, and with some species it goes up with increased density and others it goes down as there is no territory to defend.

Did you know that even songbirds are territorial and birds fight over landing spots such as tree branches etc?

What Cecil said is accurate in my opinion and experience. Probably the most aggressive species of fish I have raised had been red devil cichlids. Those things are just plain nasty. You stick your hand in the water and they will attack it. Especially if you put it near a nesting pair.

I am not sure anyone has written literature on RES in aquariums and what does and does not precipitate aggression. My experience with RES is they are middle of the road for aggression when it comes to sunfish. My experience is most species become more aggressive in general when exposed to live feed. If just fed pellets, they are less aggressive. I do not have enough experience with RES to say if this holds true for them or not.

I can say, success rates of RES preying on FHM in an aquarium setting would be substantially higher than in a wild environment such as a pond.

This all sounds reasonable.

I have some feed trained RES in two aquariums and neither are showing any aggression. They also have larger more dominant tilapia in one tank and blue gill in the other so maybe they just havent had the chance.

I still have my light period at 12 hours and the water is room temp ~70. Once it warms up outside and i can move more fish into my outdoor tanks, I will start a thread because i may need help sexing my BGxRES and RESxBG breeding pairs. At which time i will heat the aquariums closer to 80 degrees and expand my light to 16 hours. This year i have an algae and zooplankton strategy so hopefully i can keep the larva alive.

Oh and not to derail, i will be able to report better on my limited, small sample size RES behavior.


Brian

I agree CJ, there won't be near as many FHM available in a pond setting to go after. Hopefully mine will convert to eating YOY GSH and other types of YOY when I turn them loose in a few months.

Over the last few months my aquairum RES have become quite good at eating FHMs in the first 10 minutes after they are released in tank. The RES don't chase FHM around the tank when the light is on but simply wait until one swims close enough to grab. The bulk of the FHM get eaten after the lights go out for the night. I have seen a single RES eat two FHM 30 seconds apart just sitting in the same spot right after the FHM are released. I suspect that that RES mostly graze on small things during the day and become more predatory after dark.

They do seem to express more agressive behavior towards each other when when I feed them nightcrawlers as opposed to FHM or bloodworms.

Even if the pond was full of FHM, just like the aquarium. RES are not going to be as successful in catching them. Without steep walls to contain the FHM, they're not quite as easy pickings.