I am keeping a quite large flood and drain system. My system is at the stage that needs now a new fish species. The winter is coming and I was thinking of trying the trout. I never used the trout as fish in my aquaponic system before and I am little bit hesitating to choose it, cause I know trout is a really demanding and fragile fish species.

Has any of you grown trout in his aquaponic system before?

Dear Bryan

Your question is a really good one. I follow both tactics in my systems. In my small systems I keep a variety of different sizes in the fishes and add the new crops as well, but in the large systems I remove all the old fishes. The only sure thing is that you have to take care of the size of the new fish you will put to your tank.

If you already have large fishes try to don’t put small fishes with them cause the large fish will end up eating all the new ones. If you want to put small fishes in your tank that already have large fish, you have to give them some protection (use some net and create protection area).

In my biggest four grow bed system I stock the system with 100 to 120 fingerlings all the same size. The grow beds are all working by this time but I add some seasol and charlie carp into the water.This supplementing will not last for long, will be one time per week for a time period of six weeks and in small amounts. At the same time of re stocking fish I re plant the grow beds so the nutrients need is not big one.

When the large system is in full production and working really good, I keep the grow beds at different growth stages, so after I harvest (one bed at the time) I replant it.

Generally when the fishes are in large sizes, the plants are growing faster and healthier.

Hi Stanley,

Really it will be great if I will be able to breed my own fish. Till that time comes I prefer to focus on the things I know how to do well.

The breeding procedure is a tricky one and to say the truth I feel little bit scared to get involved in something I do not know many things about.