There's plenty of fish in the tank

The green tank was the first fish tank that I put in a couple of years ago and I think that I have severely overestimated the amount of fish that a small group of people would actually need. In the two main tanks there is now about a quarter of a ton of fish with the majority weighing in between the 1 and 2 kg mark.

One of the great things about Jade and Silver perch is that they are mostly herbivorous and won't eat their own young so it makes it really easy to maintain a constantly staggered production of fish by adding another hundred fingerlings to the tanks as you start to eat the larger ones.

I am ordering a fish smoker and will try it out with both the jades and silvers as I have read that these are exceptionally good fish for smoking.

So far we have only been frying the fish and have to be careful to purge the fish for a while as they can get very fatty.

I think that the main problems are that I am over feeding them and also using Barramundi feed (They didn't have bulk Perch food at the time and gave me Barra pellets for the same price) which is too high in protein.

I may start to mix their diets up a bit more with a lot more leafy greens which they love and only a small amount of pellets. Articles that I have been reading indicate that the oiliness is an advantage when smoking but so I will see how that goes.

I really want to make changes to the green tank as I made a few mistakes when setting it up. It would be nice to empty it and re-seat it on a concrete base instead of crusher dust and also raise the fiberglass grow-bed's that do all the corn production so that I can get a more reliable performance out of the auto-siphons that drain the water to the sump.

These guys really kick up a storm when you throw food in the tank. They will eat at any time of day but put on a really good show in the early morning or just on dusk.

I will take a few out this week and see if they are carrying to much body fat. They don't eat as much during winter and tend to be a lot leaner by the start of spring.

Greg Rutter