How to grow trout in aquaponics

How to grow trouts in aquaponics Hello sustainable growers. Welcome in this video. Today, we're going to talk about trouts in aquaponics and specially rainbow trout, how to grow them or why is it such a good fish for aquaponics? What are the specific techniques to improve the production? So trout is one of the few fish that has been domesticated by humans. When I said domesticated that just means that we will raise the fish for a few generations and every time we select the fish that are showing the best behavior and the best growth to reproduce them. So there is what we call a selection, selection of the best fish for aquaponics. So every generation we improve the breed where the breed becomes more performant -- normally resistant to disease which is basically we can discuss this point and the fish become more used to be handled by humans. So that's why trout is such a specific fish and today we're going to see a few points why we think trouts are very interesting for aquaculture and for aquaponics. So the first point is that trouts are growing quite fast. You know, they grow quite quickly. A fish can reach the plate size in nine months. If you compare it to silver perch, silver perch will take three to four years to reach the same size. When I say plate size you know it's 250 grams or 350 gram so it's still a small fish but you can reach this size in nine months while we know the fish that it takes way longer. So trouts are very interesting because they grow quite quickly. The second reason why lot of people are growing trout is that they basically develop a very interesting aroma, a very good taste. The flesh is a very high quality. So if you look at freshwater fish, trout is among the best quality eating fish. So when you grow trouts in aquaponics most of the time the flesh of the fish is very tasty and the color of the fish, the color of the flesh is white and actually the color of the flesh is dependent on the type of food that you're gonna give to your fish. If you look at fish from aquaculture, most of the time the fish farmers are trying to get red trout. I mean, not red but a bit orange, you know, the specific pink orange color, that's what the customer wants. So that's what -- they put some colorant into the food but in aquaponics if you use some classic fish food, the fish flesh is going to be more white. So I made a special video about it, fish flesh color. Have a look on YouTube and you're going to find it, if you are really interested to grow some trout with a pink flesh. But otherwise you just grow it with normal fish food, a fish food that is adapted to the trout and you're gonna have a white flesh trout but that is going to have the same aroma, the same textures, the same taste as the trout that you get from the shop. So the color has nothing to do with the quality. Right? It’s just some colorant that we put into the fish food but the trout develops a very, very interesting flesh, very interesting texture and flavor, and that's why so many people are growing trouts around the planet. So in terms of requirements, trouts need a certain level of oxygen and if you compare it to all the fish such as tilapia, carps, catfish, and all those types of other fish that are really famous in aquaponics, trout need actually a bit more oxygen than the other fish. In aquaculture we try to maintain the oxygen level above seven milligrams of oxygen per liter of water. In aquaponics, what we do we just put a nice aerator, you know, a little air pump with an air stone inside the fish tank and it fulfills the need of the fish. So we don't need a specific equipment but just be aware that trouts don't accept very low quantity of oxygen such as other fish. That's a specific requirement that trout have. Another requirement that trout have is the temperature. So trouts are cold water fish So when I say cold water, I mean they are really adapted to colder countries such as Europe, North America, you know those countries where basically the water is never reaching a temperature above 25 degrees. Trout's above 23 degrees, they start to struggle and they are not going to stay alive for long. So what we want in aquaponics is to keep them in conditions where the water is below 23 degrees. At 18 degrees that's where you got a really good growth; 18 to 20 degrees is okay and after that they really struggle. So if you want to put them in the best conditions, try to maintain your water between 16 and 18 degrees and they're gonna grow like crazy. In terms of water quality, trouts are a bit sensitive. So they are not as hardy as other fish such as gold fish, carps, tilapia. Trouts need to have a good quality and a good filtration. You need to have a certain filtration in your aquaponics setup. When I'm talking about filtration I'm talking about biological filtration. So you need to make sure that you don't have too much ammonia and too much nitrites in your water. You know, when other fish such as tilapia can accept very high concentration of ammonia and nitrite they’re still alive. They’re stressed but they’re still alive. Trouts after 0.5 ppm, so parts per million or milligram per liter of ammonia or nitrite, they would struggle. So always try to keep those parameters very low and if you see that your water concentration is increasing in terms of ammonia and nitrite, renew the water and decrease the quantity of fish. Basically, it's always because you got too many fish for the capacity of your system. So you can add more filtration, more biological filtration, or you can simply decrease the quantity of fish. In terms of nitrate, it's the same thing. When some fish are accepting some very high concentration of nitrate, trouts start to struggle after 50 ppm, 50 parts per million or 50 milligrams per litre So always try to keep your nitrate concentration in the aquaponics setup below 50 ppm. Again, if you got too much nitrate that's okay because nitrate is the food for the plants. It just means you don't have enough vegetables on your system, but you can definitely use this water to water your classic garden, and in this case you just have to add new water in your system and it dilutes the concentration of nitrate. So you don't waste the water directly because you use this water to water your normal garden and you’re going to add some fertilizer. I mean not fertilizer but nutrients and in the same time you basically decrease the concentration of nitrate in your water. So with trout, it’s very important to maintain those three parameters at low concentration to make sure that they are growing in good conditions. So if you want to grow your trout and if you want to really grow a good production, if you want to maximize the production of trout you want to grow the trout, you want to keep them small. So what happens is that basically you got two sexes, obviously male and female. Males are maturating after one year, right, which means that when I talk about maturation, I'm talking about sexual maturation. So trouts when they reach the adult size, they're going to start to create some gametes, you know the reproductive gametes such as the sperms or the ovules. When they do that the males are going to put a lot of energy to create the sperm and therefore this energy is lost. You don't get it for the flesh. So the trout stops growing and it continues growing but it's slowed down. So the conversion of the food is not as good and what you see is that after a while your trout don't grow so quickly. So what is important to do is to grow females. Females grow only – they maturate only after two years which means that you got two years to reach a decent size and after only, they start to maturate and they start to basically produce some eggs. So when the trouts are producing eggs again they start to slow down their growth and they put their energy into the eggs. So as a fish farmer as an aquaponics farmer what you want is to grow the fish before it reaches maturation which means that during this time it’s going to put all the energy into the growth of the muscles, into the growth of the body. So you're gonna see the weight of the fish is going to increase very quickly when they are young and when they reach the two years, they start to decrease. So fish farmers are very aware at this point that's why they grow 100% females and in aquaponics when you go to the fish farm and you buy trouts in 95% of the case you're gonna have 100% female trouts. You are not gonna have any males. So if you want to know how they do that look at my video how to maximize fish production. You're going to find the video in Melbourne Aquaponics videos and it's going to blow your mind how they make those 100% female populations. But here we are not going to spend any time talking about this specific topic. We're gonna leave it because I already talked about it in the other video. But what I really want to say is that if you want to maximize the growth of your fish just grow the fish up to one kilo or one kilo and a half and then you just harvest them and you put new small fish. That's where you're going to have the most growth. It's very easy to understand. If you put one kilo of small fish they're gonna double their weight in few weeks. So you're gonna have two kilos of fish in a few weeks only. But if you put only one fish of one kilo it's not going to double its weight. It's not going to go from one kilo to two kilos in few weeks. It's gonna take months to do that. So you understand that it's easier to grow more weight of fish with small fish than with big fish. You just need to have a lot of small fish and not just a few big fish. That's where you maximize your production. So the trout develops eggs right after 2 years, if you keep them. If you want to keep them after 2 years they're going to develop some eggs so it's not real eggs actually. The egg is when you got the fecundation of the ovule with the sperm but before that, they create what we call the ovocytes. They are not even ovules yet. They are just before the ovule actually and they develop them inside their body but the rainbow trouts they generally come with spawns by themselves. So you have to strip them. If you want to grow really big trout you have to strip which means to remove the eggs from the body of the female. We don't have to open the female. Just when the female is ready, when the eggs are ready, they are mature. If you catch the female and you just give it a massage of the belly, you're going to be able to basically remove the eggs from the body and you can keep them on a little bucket and then you can put a bit of salt on it and you can eat them. They are really good. It's called trout caviar. You can find it in some supermarkets and it's very, very good to eat. So keep in mind that you have to do that. If you don't remove the eggs from the body of the female, most of the time the eggs start to rot inside the body and the female start to have some infection and most of the time they fall sick and they die. So if you want to keep a big fish you have to remove the eggs In aquaculture what they do when they want to produce really big trouts they use triploid trout which is trout that are basically 3 chromosomes, not 2 and therefore they don't develop any eggs. They’re sterilized so because they are sterilized they basically don't create any eggs and therefore they only put their growth into the flesh. So they grow up very fast and the fish farmers are able to get some really nice big fish without having to strip or to do any specific thing and without losing some energy in the eggs. So in terms of fish food, trouts as I said before they are quite domesticated. So the fish farmers have developed some really, really good fish food that is really adapted to the needs of trout. So if you are keeping trout in aquaponics you may be interested to give them some live food which is great but if you are using fish food pellets or dry food so make sure that you buy a fish food that is adapted to the trout. Trout are actually predators and they need a specific quantity of fish meal into their food. If they don't get that they’re going to struggle to grow. You know, they need a lot of omega-3 and polyunsaturated fats that come from the fish meal. So make sure that you use a fish food that is adapted to the needs of trouts. In terms of behaviour trouts are predators which means that they got this genetically, this ability to be dominant and to try to catch other the fish. So when you keep your trout, you need to keep them all of the same size. If you mix the sizes you can't. You know, you can't mix a fish of one year with a fish of two years. Otherwise, the big one is going to eat the small one. But what is also very important to understand is that they got the territorial behaviour which means that by nature they claim their territory And if you put few fish together in your tank, one of them is going to become dominant and it's going to chase the others around and the others are going to be stressed and they are not going to grow and one of them, the dominant is going to grow. It's going to eat all the food. It’s going to grow super-fast while the others are basically stressed and not eating, not feeding well. So sometimes they fall sick and sometimes they simply die. So you want to avoid that and this happens when you put a few fish in a big tank. But if you put a lot of fish then you got this kind of society effect where the fish are growing together but they don't really recognize each other and therefore, you don't have any that is going to become dominant. So with predatorious fish you have to maintain them in a minimum density. So what I recommend is to have 10 kilos of fish per cubic meter of water. So you know that in aquaculture, we can push them up to above 100 kilos of fish per cubic meter of water which is 10% of fish per water. That's a lot, but in aquaponics, I recommend 10 kilos, 10 to 20, you know. It's really good because at this level, the fish can’t really recognize each other. So you still have this cool effect you know, the society effect. So the fish are not going to attack each other but at the same time, there are not too many of them. So they are not too much stressed, which means that they are going to grow in good conditions and you are not going to have too many diseases on your fish. So talking about disease, there are few diseases that can attack the trout. First there are some viruses. So the virus attacks the fish especially in cold water so what you want to do if you have virus on your fish is try to increase the water temperature. It's not very easy but in aquaponics, most of the time we don't have this virus. It's more in the big farms In the big farms when the water is cold yes we can have some virus and it can just kill the whole population and there is not much they can do. The only thing you can do when you get a virus is to give better conditions for the fish hoping that the body of the fish is going to be able to fight against the virus. But there is no real solution to basically save your fish. So the best thing is really to prevent it and to put your fish in good conditions at the very beginning so it's going to avoid them to develop the disease. Another type of disease that you can have is bacteria. So on trout there are few bacteria that are really well known and when they are onto your fish they can just jump from one trout to the other and you can have the disease everywhere. So some of them are called Yersinia and furunculosis. So those two ones, in fish farms they sometimes use some vaccines so they inject the fish with a vaccine and the fish develop the immune system against those specific diseases. In aquaponics, we are not going to inject the fish. Because we are in very low density, we have very few chances to get those diseases. So we just take the risk. But most of the time the fish don’t fall sick, don't get those specific diseases. So in aquaculture as well when they see the disease happening and when the fish are starting to fall sick they use a lot of antibiotics to kill the disease because they are bacteria. Right? In aquaponics, we can't use any antibiotics because it will affect also the bacteria of the system. Right? So we don't want to use any antibiotics and even it's completely against what we want. We want to produce a food that is sustainable and healthy. That’s the aim of aquaponics. That's why we spend a bit of time and we give so much love to our garden so we are not going to put any pesticide or any antibiotics in the system. We want to grow the fish as natural as possible. That's why we work at giving the best conditions for the fish. In this case we avoid the disease. But what can happen on the fish is the third type of disease. It's the parasites. So there are different types of parasites. There are some little crustaceans. Costia is one of them. So they can develop on the skin of the fish and on the scales on the fins and in the gills. Unfortunately, those little parasites are quite common. It's not very rare to see them and in the fish farms they are everywhere every day. They have to treat with chemicals to basically try to minimize this quantity of parasites. In Aquaponics, we are in low density so again, we hope to not have too many of them but sometimes they come. Same as fungus you know fungus they can grow on the skin of the fish and they can happen as well in aquaponics especially if the fish are a bit stressed or if the water is not in the specific range of temperature that the fish like. So if you got those diseases have a look at the specific video. I made how to treat your fish against disease or something like this. I made a specific video about disease on fish and basically what I recommend is to fish your fish and to put them in a salt bath because the salt is going to attack the parasites. You know, if you give the fish a salt bath around 10 grams per litre of water it's going to basically kill the parasites. The parasites are going to fall down and then you can put your fish back into your fish tank as they're going to be cleaned from parasites. So that's one of the techniques we use to get rid of the disease in aquaponics. Another type of trout that is very interesting, we’re still in the rainbow trout, but now it's a golden trout. Golden trout are the same species as a rainbow trout but the only difference is that they develop a specific colour. So if you look at the colour of a golden trout, they're going to be all yellow which is fantastic for us because we would like to see the fish and in a pond you know, the pond that's often black. So when you put a rainbow trout in a black pond, you don't see it because the trouts are grey, black as well and basically they adapt their colour to the colour of the pond. So you basically can't see your trout in a black pond. But when you put a golden trout then it's all yellow. So you’d really see it and it looks amazing. I mean, it's almost an ornamental fish such as gold fish, you know. So a good thing is that the golden trout they look good. They also taste good because they taste exactly the same as a rainbow trout. So they look exceptional, they taste exceptional and they have exactly the same requirements as the rainbow trouts. So if you can have some yeah I really recommend to grow some in aquaponics They are really good fish to have. If you want to put fish in a dam or outside in an exposed area, don't put yellow trout or golden trout because unfortunately the birds can spot them very easily and as soon as you got the predators they're gonna attack them and they're gonna find them. They're going to catch them super easily. So if you put trouts on the dam I would still recommend to use normal rainbow trouts and not the golden trout. So you may wonder where to find trouts because yes today I sell you the species. It's a really good species to have. I kept a lot of trouts and I grew a lot of them in aquaponics and I really like the species but where to find them? Well, there is no real super way to find them. There is no one shop to find little trouts. We call them fingerlings. But what you can do is to go out to the closest fish pond. So the trout farms most of the time they're going to be happy to sell you a few fish if you buy a hundred of them or even 50 or 20 of them whatever. You go then. It may cost you $1 per fish or whatever and then you got your fish home when you go there in the same time you can buy the fish food that they use at the farm so then you got the specific adapted fish food and you can grow them in aquaponics. So I hope you enjoyed this video and you now want to grow some trouts because it's really a cool fish to grow. Just make sure you are not in a tropical country because again, if your water temperature is not adapted you are not going to be able to grow trout in good conditions. If you are new to aquaponics don't forget to get the free guide from the description just below. This guide is going to give you all the limits and their different ratio to respect in aquaponics. It's going to give you the best step to respect in order to build an aquaponics setup in the best conditions. If you enjoyed the video please give it a like and don't forget to subscribe to the channel to receive all the new videos and all the new tips that I’m giving you every week. See you in the next video. Bye-bye. 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!