Hello sustainable growers.
This is Jonathan from Melbourne Aquaponics.
Today, we will see what are the different types of tropical fish that you can grow in
your own aquaponics setup, if you live in a tropical country.
So the snakehead fish is an interesting predator to keep in aquaponics.
This fish has got a very wide mouth and is able to jump out of the water to eat some
very nice insects on the surface.
It's also able to eat some other fish so you can't really mix the sizes with this type
of fish, but it's very interesting because it grows pretty fast.
So you're going to create -- you're going to grow a lot of fish protein very fast.
Another interesting fact with this fish is that it's able to breathe the air directly
out of the atmosphere.
So basically it can remain alive for a few days out of the water as long as the body
stays moist, you know.
It needs to breathe some moist air and the flesh is quite good.
So here in Asia, they keep it alive and they just still kill it when the consumer wants
to buy it.
The giant gourami is an interesting fish, as well.
First, the shape is very unusual, but also it's able to eat some vegetables directly,
so in aquaponics, it's very convenient.
If you have any old leaves, you can directly give them to your fish.
The fish are going to eat them and therefore, you don't have to spend a crazy quantity of
money in the fish food.
It's also a fish that is growing quite fast and the flesh is pretty nice.
So I quite recommend this fish in tropical aquaponics.
It's also called elephant ear fish because of the specific shape of its body and its
mouth.
So later on we're going to fish one and I'm going to show you the shape exactly of the
body.
It's very interesting and in Asia they very often grill it and they eat it and they make
it stand on the plate.
It looks quite interesting when you eat this type of fish.
Jonathan: How many have you got?
Male: 4.
Jonathan: Oh.
Male: Small one.
Jonathan: Really nice fish.
Male: Let’s see.
Jonathan: Ah, yeah.
Now, I understand.
And how old is this fish?
Male: About six months.
Jonathan: Six months?
So when you get them you buy them like babies?
Male: Yes, a baby.
Jonathan: Fingerlings?
Male: Yes.
Jonathan: From the fish farm?
You buy them?
Male: Buy small one from my neighbor.
Jonathan: From your neighbor?
Male: Neighbor, yeah.
Jonathan: Does he breed them in a pond as well?
Male: Yeah.
Jonathan: They breed them and then you’re going to eat it?
Male: No.
Jonathan: When it’s bigger?
Male: Most when it’s bigger about 1.5 kilograms.
Jonathan: All right.
And how long does it take them?
One year?
Male: About one year.
Jonathan: And do you feed them every day?
Male: Feed them every four or five days.
Jonathan: Wow.
Male: Eats vegetable, many kinds of vegetables and banana.
Jonathan: Oh, you give them banana as well?
And do you know how long it can stay outside of the water?
Can it stay longer?
Male: About 15 minutes.
Jonathan: Oh, yeah.
Okay.
So it’s not very long.
It’s a really nice fish.
Thank you so much.
Male: Yeah.
Jonathan: Bye.
The catfish are interesting fish for aquaponics.
You got a very wide variety of them.
Here you can see a catfish that looks a bit like the Basa.
But anyway, I'm not going to talk about catfish today because I made a special video about
it.
Here now, we see some sturgeons.
Tortoises are also kept in Vietnam and they are consumed by the population.
I know we don't have this in our culture in Europe, in the States, or in Australia, but
a lot of countries are eating tortoises and they can be kept in aquaponics.
Freshwater prawns it's an excellent candidate for aquaponics.
I think those types of prawns can be grown without any problem in the raft tank system.
So if you got a deep water culture system you can put some freshwater prawns inside
the pond.
Tilapia is a very famous fish, very nice fish to grow.
It accepts some very poor water conditions, but also it grows quite fast.
It has a very nice flesh and it's also a beautiful fish to have because some of them have some
very nice color such as these white and yellow ones.
So now I'm going to show you a few saltwater species that can be interesting for the future
of aquaponics.
Now, we are riding along the different saltwater ponds and they are growing prawns.
Actually, in those ponds, they are growing black tiger prawns.
So black tiger is a very famous species of prawns that offers a very nice flesh, and
it's a very big prawn.
So we can see it right now.
You can see why we call it tiger because you see on the tail you can see those stripes
of color, black and yellow.
It's a very nice prawn to grow, but obviously, it's only saltwater prawns so if you have
a saltwater aquaponics setup you can try to grow some, but at the moment, very few people
in the world are using aquaponics for saltwater.
Here we can see the aeration system or some aerators on the surface of the pond to make
sure that we got enough oxygen in the water.
Here we can see the grouper in the cages.
So the grouper is a very nice fish to grow and to eat.
Again, it's a saltwater fish, but this fish can grow to impressive sizes, so normally
in aquaculture, we don't keep it too long.
We don't grow it too much, but it can really reach some amazing sizes.
So here you can also see how they grow and farm the pearl oysters.
You know those oysters that they grow to produce the pearls.
So those little oysters they are grown until the size where they’re going to be grafted
and a little piece of plastic is going to be put inside the oyster where the oysters
are going to develop their shell around the plastic.
It’s going to form a fantastic pearl.
Well that's what we saw here with different species of oysters.
Female: So it’s now five years.
We need three more years.
It’s total of 8 years for one pearl.
Normally, one pearl inside, maximum of two.
Make your earrings, better.
You look like a queen.
Same same but different.
Maybe after 8 years, sit here for a year.
Very long time to make.
Do you open have a pearl inside.
But one particular pearl.
You can see here.
They take about every month.
There’s nothing inside.
You can see.
And you can see here the operating room.
Here’s the operation room.
Looks like a hospital.
They look a doctor.
We open one oyster.
We have to kill one oyster.
We cut here and cut here: from here and from here.
Just like this.
We pour it.
When I open the oyster, I don’t see a pearl but where’s your pearl?
I don’t know.
Nothing.
Congratulations.
So I also had the opportunity to see a lot of different animals around the farms and
I saw all those little chickens and cows and I thought it was interesting so I’m just
going to let you enjoy a bit of Vietnamese wildlife or farm life
I hope you enjoyed the video.
If it's the case, please don't forget to give me a like and let me know if you are growing
one of those fish in your aquaponics setup in the comments of the video just below.
And also don't forget to get your bonus from the description.
See you in the next one.
Bye-bye.
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I really hope to see you soon and I wish you a fantastic success with aquaponics.
Have a good crop!