Hello sustainable growers!
This is Jonathan from Melbourne Aquaponics.
In this video I would like to talk about a way to produce some food for your fish...
Most of us, we are feeding our fish with some fish food pellet.
It's quite good for the fish.
You know, the fish food pellet, if it's a good quality one it is very well adapted to
the needs of the fish.
But it's also good sometimes to change a bit what you give to your fish.
If you can give them some living food.
I am talking about vegetables of worms or insects.
You are going to add lot of value to their diet.
That is something that I really recommend and in this video that is what I want to show
you.
I want to show you how to grow some fish food and what are the possibilities.
In this video I am going to focus on only one of them but there are lots of possibilities
to grow or to find different sources of fish food for your fish.
In Melbourne Aquaponics we grow silverperch mainly.
We grow also some trouts but today I want to make a special zoom on the silverperch
because silverperch is a fish that can turn vegetarian when it grows.
They are lot of other fish that are going to accept some vegetables into their diet:
Carps, goldfish... all those kind of fish are able to accept a bit of green food basically.
In aquaponics you can grow some lettuce, to grow some spinach and to feed your fish with
it, but I think it's a bit of a shame to feed your fish with something that you could eat
directly, because the fish are not going to transform 1kg of vegetables into 1 kg of fish.
There are lot of waste so what I recommend is to grow some green things for your fish
in an area that you don't use.
This little setup here, basically I got a fish tank and a growbed.
The growbed is completely empty and the reason why it is empty is because I use it as a demonstration.
I want to show my customers how the bell siphon works.
So I want to show them the level going up and down into the growbed (what is normally
the growbed).
So let here we don't have any media, it's completely empty, it is only water.
But as you can see it is all green and the reason why it is all green and the reason
why it is so green it is because I put some duckweed or aquatic plants to feed my fish.
So those tanks, the fish tank and the growbed, that are demonstration tanks, I use them to
grow some duckweeds for the silverperch.
That is something you can do at home, in a simple bucket or if you have a large tank
(a bit shallow and large.
You can use a bit of water from your aquaponics setup because this water is quite high in
nitrate and that is a very good support to grow any vegetables.
So you put a bit of this water in a bucket and you put it in an area where there is not
too much shadow, exposed to the sun.
The duckweeds are very quickly going to multiply and they will cover the whole surface of this
area.
By doing so you will produce some free fish food for your fish because it is just a bit
of water from your aquaponics setup but it's very productive.
You know the duckweed are able to grow extremely quickly so the duckweed is an aquatic plant
that is growing on the surface of the water, not into the water.
I think that is a fantastic way to produce some free fish food that is very high in vitamins.
And you mix it, you give them maybe once a week or whatever but whatever you can do,
it is going to be a plus for your fish.
There is only one issue when you put some water on a bucket outside is that most of
the time the mosquitos are coming and they spawn into the water.
By spawning into the water they are going to create some larvae that could also be an
excellent source of food for your fish but if you don't grab the larvae, if you some
larvae inside the tank, what is going to happen is that it is going to develop more mosquitos
and you are going to multiply the number of mosquitos that you have got around your place
and I don't think this is what you want.
So what I recommend is to put some fish inside this tank.
So you are going to tell me: "Wait a minute, there is no much oxygen, how can I pout fish
here because we don't renew the water, the water is sitting here...".
What you can do is to put some fish that have a very low oxygen consumption.
I am talking about some fish such as goldfish or Gambusia.
I don't know if you know Gambusia, have a look on internet, Gambusia is called also
"Mosquito fish" because in some countries it is used to eat all the mosquito larvae.
That is something very interesting to have in your aquaponics setup.
You can introduce them in your aquaponics setup but it is very important to have some
(one or two fish) in each tank that you leave outside.
In this case they are going to eat the mosquito larvae, so they are going to have a very good
source of food as well and they are going to avoid any mosquito to multiply in those
tanks and to increase the population of mosquitos around your place so that is a good way to
grow some green food for your fish without having any problem with mosquitos.
Below the duckweed I also grow some elodea, this is an aquatic plant that is very well
known by the aquarium keepers.
Elodea is a very interesting plant to have, it grows extremely quickly.
Look at the productivity, you see the biomass that I have here, I got plenty of it, the
tank is full of this elodea, you can also have some dragonfly that are going to spawn
and you are going to have a whole ecosystem here as well.
So this elodea is going to be a good support for this ecosystem, so that is also something
that you can grow easily for your fish and your crustaceans.
So we have 2 kinds of duckweed, so this one is not the real duckweed, it is a bit thicker,
and the fish don't really like this one.
I mean they eat this one but they prefer the other one which is a bit softer.
This one is quite thick.
Look at it.
You that is an aquatic plant that is living on the surface and you see the roots are just
falling down from the surface.
The roots are here and if you leave it , it is going to cover all the surface and it is
not going to leave any light underneath so if you mix it with some elodea such as I do
here, you see the elodea is underneath.
If you do that some time to times you need to collect this floating aquatic plant otherwise
you don't have any light and the elodea that is below is going to die.
And then we got the classic duckweed, this one is really the duckweed that the fish love.
This one is very much smaller and the fish love this kind of duckweed.
I give some to my goldfish sometimes, they love it.
To collect your duckweed you just need a very small net and you come on the surface.
It's very simple and doesn’t take any time.
You see the quantity I have here, you see the roots.
I just take it and I put it in my fish tank.
It doesn't take me lot of time and this is it.
The fish are going to eat it whenever they want.
Here we can see that is a leaf that I gave them, I gave them a few.
You see that they are attacking the leaves and sometimes there are some leftovers like
now.
You see the holes...
They love to have some vegetarian food as well.
Here we have some celery with some holes as well inside.
So I am going to leave it.
So you see that is all complements that you can give to your fish.
They are completely free and it is going to improve their diet.
If you are watching this video on YouTube, you will see that on the description of the
video, just below, you have access to some free gifts:
First you have access to a 6 STEP process to build your Aquaponics system in good conditions,
I developed this 6 STEP process because I found that too many beginners are basically
starting aquaponics with a wrong design.
So if you want to build your own aquaponics setup, please just follow those 6 STEP process.
It's completely free, I really designed it to help you to build your setup in good conditions
and therefore to succeed in Aquaponics.
The second gift is for people who already have aquaponics, a very common problem that
we have in aquaponics is that we got the leaves of the vegetables that are turning yellow.
The reason why is because basically in aquaponics we sometimes need to add some minerals otherwise
the vegetables have some deficiencies.
So if you have this problem, I made a special video about it as well and you can have access
to it in the description of the video, it's the "free bonus video".
If you are very interested into aquaponics you can also have access to our webinar, a
free webinar specific to aquaponics, where I deliver a lot of information.
Finally, you are probably aware that I wrote an Aquaponics digital manual called "THE ART
OF AQUAPONICS" and you can have access to a free excerpt of this aquaponics manual where
I add a lot of value and I give you a lot of my knowledge about aquaponics.
So don't forget that you can have access to those 4 gifts on the description of this video
and I am sure they are going to help you to develop your aquaponics setup and to produce
your own sustainable and healthy food in good conditions.
Bye bye!
Thank you so much for watching the video, I really hope you enjoyed it.
Don't forget to get your free gift from this screen, you can also leave me a comment below
the video, subscribe to the channel and see my last video.
I really hope to see you soon and I wish you a fantastic success with aquaponics.
Have a good crop!