Hello sustainable growers, this is Jonathan from Melbourne Aquaponics, today I want to
talk about a very interesting fish to have in Aquaponics.
Lot of people are talking about it from a cleaning point of view because it's supposed
to be a good cleaner this is the catfish.
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Catfish are very interesting fish because they live on the bottom of the tank most of
the time but they are always looking for some food.
As soon as you put some food into your aquaponics setup they are going to look everywhere and
they have got some very interesting organs that are sensory organs two very long "Moustache"
and they are always feeling what is in the tank so as soon as you put food in the tank
he can feel it and they are going to look around trying to find it.
And obviously this fish is mostly designed to feed on the bottom of the tank so if you
got other fish and you keep a few catfish in your tank, if you overfeed the fish after
a while, you know, when the food is on the bottom most of the fish are losing interest
while the catfish, because it is designed to eat the food from the bottom of the tank
they are going to still eat this food.
So obviously once the fish is full, it's full right?
But it is going to continue to eat while the other fish are going to stop.
The other fish even if they are not completely full, if the fish food has been seating on
the bottom for a while, they are going to stop and they are going to wait for new food
to come while the catfish may continue to eat this food.
So that is very interesting because it's going to avoid to waste some fish food.
I know that a lot of aquaponics keepers are going to think that it is not wasted because
it still into the aquaponics setup so obviously even if the fish are not eating it, at one
point it is going to break down and it is going to finish into the water pump and therefore
it is going to go into the vegetables side and that is correct.
The Nitrogen is not lost but the thing is... this fish food could have been used by the
fish first while if no fish eat it, it goes directly to the vegetables so you don't grow
any fish protein.
So it's much better if part of this fish food is used to grow actual fish because the fish
food is quite expensive in aquaponics so if you have one, two or more catfish into your
aquaponics setup, you are going to improve what we call the conversion ratio of the quantity
of fish food by quantity of fish produced.
So I think it's a very good fish to have into your aquaponics setup.
So that's the first thing.
It's not really cleaning the tank by itself but it is eating the "dead" food a bit more
than the other fish.
The other thing is that it's a very social fish so as I was just saying you can have
just one or two into your tank and they are going to mix really well with the other fish,
they are going to... they are very friendly, very social excepted if you have a very very
big catfish because they can grow to very big sizes depending on the species.
You know there are hundreds of catfish species on earth, most of them are quite social but
if you put the big ones (in Europe we call them "Silure"), they can reach almost 3m so
if you put one of those in your aquaponics with a gold fish, the goldfish is going to
disappear straight away.
Some of them can even eat chicken, we heard about some dogs attacked.
So a huge catfish, a huge silure is not to put in an aquaponics setup with other fish
but if you respect the sizes, if you have small catfish or fish of the similar size,
you can definitely mix them with other species.
So that is a very interesting thing.
The third thing is the behaviour of this fish, the behaviour is usually very "unusual", different
from the other fish, a bit less active.
It still active but in a very different way.
So if you are interested by the aquatic life, if you have a look at the fish in your setup,
I think it is good to have those kind of things into the aquaponics setup that are going to
add a bit of biodiversity into the fish tank and you know it is always good to see those
different behaviour.
It is the same thing as having some crayfish or yabbies into your aquaponics setup, you
know it is not that you are going to produce a lot of them, it's not that you are going
to eat a feast from them but it is going to add a bit of life into the setup and a bit
of biodiversity.
So that is some little things that I recommend to have into your aquaponics setup because
it add a bit of life in the setup and everyone can come around and see the different species
of fish.
"Have you seen this one?
Have you seen that one?"
It's same as having an Aquarium at home.
You like to have different species, you don't want to have only one species of fish, depending
on what you like but most of people like to see a bit of everything so it creates more
animation into the tank.
finally I would like to add the fact that if we say that it is a "bottom feeder", don't
forget that catfish when they are hungry they come at the surface as soon as you put the
food into the water so if you got some big catfish, it's going to eat a lot before all
the other fish.
if it's bigger than the other fish around, it is going to eat everything and obviously
once the fish is full, it is just going to go into a pipe or wherever, it is just going
to seat on the bottom and then if you put too much fish food, the fish food is going
to stay on the bottom of the tank and is going to stay there, the catfish is going to be
fill and it is going to take a while for the catfish to digest until he can start to be
attracted by the food again.
Another interesting fact about catfish is that they got some spines into the fines.
So they got 3 spines around their body and therefore they don't have many predators.
The predators are not able to eat them because of those kind of picks.
So I am going to try to show you those kind of picks on the fish, they are very sharp
and if you got some catfish at home, if you manipulate them please be very careful because
it can very easily damage your skin and make a hole and it is very painful so when you
touch the fish, always put your hands into the water first, then if the fish has got
some scales, the scales are not going to stick to your hands.
Here catfish catfish doesn't have any scale, they got a very smooth skin but for any other
fish, always put your hands into the water.
Catfish can stay a while out of the water.
And here I can feel his picks.
You see the fins, these fins here and the dorsal one as well.
So the 3 fins that are just around the head.
They look soft but actually inside there is this pick and it's very very hard.
So if you are a predator and you touch it, it's going to penetrate inside your hands
/ inside your skin.
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I really hope to see you soon and I wish you a fantastic success with aquaponics.
Have a good crop!