GUDGEONS

Rob McCormack

We grow a number of different species of Gudgeons. They 2 main species we are currently doing are Striped Gudgeons Gobiomorphus australis and Flathead Gudgeons Philypnodon grandiceps. Both of these are natives of Eastern Australia and thrive in both fish tanks and dams. We sell most of the gudgeons produced to Councils and environmentally conscious people who have constructed artificial water bodies and need native small fish to stock them with to control mosquitos. Gudgeons when released into wetlands or dams etc rapidly produce viable populations of fish which naturally reproduce and create a food source for all other animals. As a native fish if flooding occurs and some escape they are not harmful to the local environment and can only enhance it. Gudgeons do not grow very large. They average in the dam approximately 80 to 100 mm long head to tail. Larger animals can grow to 150mm but this is rare. As a small native fish which reproduces readily they are becoming increasingly important to people stocking dams with large eating fish such as Australian or Bass Yellowbelly. In the wild Gudgeons would be the main food source of Bass. Stocking a dam with gudgeons prior to Bass release ensures a good food supply in the dam and fast growing bass.

All our Gudgeons are produced in outside earthen ponds with other species. Polyculture where we grow 2 or more species in the same pond is extremely important at Port Stephens as we are commercial farmers and need to maximise the returns from any given pond of water. Gudgeons are in all our broodstock and water storage dams however these populations are not harvested as they are there to create a food source for other species. Our specific Gudgeon ponds are our Mullet ponds. We commercially farm mullet and as another crop in our mullet ponds we grow Gudgeons. This has proved highly successful and in a 1000 square metre surface area pond full of mullet from 30 gram to 3000gram we have 4000 to 6000 gudgeons. Capture is simple as we use small shrimp traps which we just drop in the pond. They are unbaited but the gudgeons are very inquisitive and approx 20 per hour will just swim into the trap to check it out.

Currently we are attempting to increase our stocks of Purple Spotted Gudgeons as these are a very pretty species with a high demand in the aquarium trade. They are becoming rare in the wild so a good species to grow for restocking. Commercial supplies will not be available till 2003 or 2004.