Brown Trout V's Rainbows?

[froggo]

Hi everyone,

this season is my first attempt at growing trout in my AP system.

What I'm intrested in is how many of us have grown rainbows because we are told it's the best option?

Is this through personal experience or are we just on some bandwagon?

Why don't more people grow browns when they are better suited to warmer waters?

I just confused about some of the knowledge/reports on trout that were written for colder climates and have just been transferred to Australia.

There are reports done in Australia [FISHERIES RESEARCH REPORT NO. 130, 2001] that show brown trout can handle much higher water temps than generally accepted by cooler climate operators/knowledge.

I myself have seen again and again brown and rainbow trout living and breeding in water that are outside the norm accepted ranges.

These trout have adapted to the warmer waters. It does not mean you can get a trout from cold waters and put it in warm water and expect it to survive because it will not.

So the ideas is there are trout out there that are quite happy in warmer waters as long as their food and oxygen requirements are met.

I purchased 50 brown trout from Ballarat and have introduced them to my sump tank.

On the first night I had 10 die due to lack of air [I run my air 24/7, system pump off at night] from poor quality air stones.

After I replaced the four air stones with better quality and bigger size units no more trout have died.

The trout are swimming around and feeding as normal and the water temp is 23 deg C. These trout being from Ballarat would have been bred in colder waters and so should not like my warmer sump tank.

It could be said the reason for the 10 trout deaths was shock at the water temp but I'm quite sure it was oxygen.

My plan is to map the progress of my trout with daily temp checks over the normal growing period or season with several weigh samples included.

I would like to compare with other on this forum who are intrested in expanding our knowledge on trout in AP.

If anyone is intrested in adding their experiences and data to this please feel free to do so:)

God bless froggo.

[aussieap]

Look fwd to sharing some info with you froggo. I will have a few kits up and running shortly. Plan on stocking rainbows and browns in different tanks to see how they go. Mine will be from Ballarat as well.
Let's stay in touch.

[froggo]

Hi aussieap,

sounds good.

It's handy that the trout from Ballarat are all wild trout stock. I forgot to ask them what waters they collected their brood stock from for the trout I brought?

Their trout should be well adapted to the drought conditions/lower warmer water over the past 10 years or so, suppose I'll find out.

God bless froggo

[aussieap]

My understanding is Ballarat is the original trout farm in Victoria.
Those guys have been thru 100 generations of Australian summers.
The breedlines are plenty tough. There may be purer high growth strains at commercial growout facilities but the ones from Ballarat are plenty tough and good for us home growers I think.
The only problems we tend to have with them commercially, occur with those consistent 40-45C days for 2-3 days in a row. That and the things like fire events that cause a drop in water quality from ash/de oxygenation etc. We can't do much about these things.

As homegrowers, we don't have the water volumes of flow thru or commercial systems. I feel we would be more likely to lose them given lower water volumes= higher potential temp variation.

If we can keep water filled ice cream containers frozen and add a few to the system each day during the heat of summer, keep the air up and ease off on the feed during those really warm times in Feb, we may grow them 12 months. I guess time and experience will tell.