Does anyone raise their own fish?

[DianeS]

I have read a few how-to instructions on how to raise your own fish (usually tilapia) in an extra-large water trough in the yard. Seems completely doable, but the instructions are not too long on troubleshooting if something goes wrong. I'm hoping to find people who have done so in the past (or currently) in case I run into a problem or question.

So - has anyone done this?

Thanks!

 

[Emerald]

I so want to do this.. I was thinking yellow perch here in Michigan.. but not only raising the fish but running a pump and line thru and maybe a bell siphon and get some aquaponics going for cucumbers and lettuces and stuff.. Oh MY! if you do a small search on aquaponics you will be blown away by some of the set ups..
I've already grown a bit of baby boc choi and lettuce on a floating raft on top of my gold fish tank. Hubs even rigged my grow lights over the tank.. only downside.. my gold fish and guppy tanks are right next to one another and the light encouraged green algae to form on the sides of the tanks... Maybe I should ask for a few Plecostomus to go in the tanks.

 

[Leta]

I want to do this, too! The easy set ups are usually tilapia because using hybridization you can have all male fish and control reproduction, but DH and I both detest tilapia, so we also want to go with perch.

I got the idea from gardenpool.org, which is awesome in the literal sense of the word (even though they use tilapia).

 

[FarmerChick]

oh boy did we look into this when starting up the income farm about 15 yrs ago...but on a more commercial basis. Costs way out for us so we backed off.

We have a good size pond on the 30 acres and are thinking catfish for ourselves vs. real fishing lol....but then we thought, NOPE, we won't farm fish cause we love fishing. Just to relax etc......but this is a great source of food if needed. If anyone has the chance, ditch the trough and dig a pond. We had a natural spring on our land which filled our pond fast.

I think the trough is a good idea and can be done, but fish are that crazy livestock. Most take a long time to reach good food length and they require knowledge.

but heck ya if you so want to do it hit the web and suck up all the info one can!

 

[MsPony]

Aquarium fish help will apply here, a good pond/fish specialty store can help you. I work in the pet industry and I get tilapia raising questions all the time About disease, death, filtration, overstocking, etc.

 

[Britesea]

We can't grow tilapia here- it gets too cold. I would love to have a pond, but it would need to be pretty deep to keep from freezing solid in winter... guess we'll just keep trying to get fish and crawdads out of the river

 

[k15n1]

I'm thinking of a 55-gal drum w/ a 3x3' grow bed. Probably would stock it with something that's happy around 60 oF, rather than a tropical fish. Maybe a pan fish.

A friend of mine did this, and it was a bit of a humidity disaster in their basement. They were mainly doing it for fun.

I want to do this in my basement, but with a covered barrel. However, I have to make sure it's cost efficient. And until I have the chicken coop done, I'm not starting any new projects!

Friends have convinced me that I should just spend 3-5 days fishing next summer. With some instruction, I'm told that I should be able to catch 40-50 # per year, with no outlay beyond the pole and license. It's hard to beat that. Catch, clean, freeze. I'll focus on smaller fish, like sunnies and crapies, to minimize heavy-metal accumulation. And I'm not above eating carp...

 

[Dawn419]

I so want to do this.. I was thinking yellow perch here in Michigan.. but not only raising the fish but running a pump and line thru and maybe a bell siphon and get some aquaponics going for cucumbers and lettuces and stuff.. Oh MY! if you do a small search on aquaponics you will be blown away by some of the set ups..
I've already grown a bit of baby boc choi and lettuce on a floating raft on top of my gold fish tank. Hubs even rigged my grow lights over the tank.. only downside.. my gold fish and guppy tanks are right next to one another and the light encouraged green algae to form on the sides of the tanks... Maybe I should ask for a few Plecostomus to go in the tanks.

Emerald,

Your set-up sounds really cool!

If you can get them, you might want to try Otocinclus instead of Pleco's for the algae problem.

 

[FarmerChick]

k1 --that is a good idea. fish to stock the freezer and have a huge fish fry

we camp and when we hit the mountains, hubby goes trout fishing. We come home with tons of delish trout. Can't go wrong and we have fun catching our freezer food lol

 

[pinkfox]

definatly ottos or snails for algea. pleco only eat algea during their juvinile stage (they eat wood as adults!) and most need a minimum of 55 gallons to live in. ottos howver are small active and voracious life long algea eaters. there also a "small bio-load" fish, ive personally found i can double normal stocking rates with ottos.