Raising fish in a barrel.

[Mossy]

I used to read the rec.ponds newsgroup. According to a search I just did, it has been taken over by some group (trolls?)

Try this link:

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/psource.htm

[Treetop]

this thread still interesting people? just wondering out loud if i should continue to post on this topic..... or wait until Ive got a more perfected set up.....

[Mossy]

It's the sort of thing I keep thinking about, and this is a good thread for discussing the subject.

Guinea pigs are also good for meat, but you might want to search for the meat breeds. I tried, half heartedly because of local weather, but found nothing.

Guinea pigs are one of the few small animals that can survive only on grass, although they like a bit of variety.

[Treetop]

Ive got guinea pigs and rabbits.... guinea pigs need vitamin c also actually, but that can be accounted for....

[anarchir]

I dont know how you can raise those fish. Fish are really confusing me. I have 2 ferrets, a dog and a snapping turtle all in perfect health. I am trying to keep feeder fish alive in their own tank from the pet store for more than a day but cant manage it. Its getting a bit ridiculous.

[Mossy]

I am trying to keep feeder fish alive in their own tank from the pet store for more than a day but cant manage it. Its getting a bit ridiculous.

You are careful of thermal shock, right?

Also, are you on city water? Chlorine is bad news. Chloramine, a combination of chlorine and ammonia, is very difficult to remove or nuetralize, and is death on fish. So are high nitrate concentrations. Ask around locally, others may be having troubles too.

[Rodebaugh]

this thread still interesting people? just wondering out loud if i should continue to post on this topic..... or wait until Ive got a more perfected set up.....

Yeah Zac, I am still checking its updates. Waiting on my photots

[Treetop]

http://tinypic.com/r/16hnfar/7

http://tinypic.com/r/f0cih3/7

I couldnt get it to post pictures..... Im under construction on my outside tanks. so heres a few pics of 3 of my 4 indoor ones. Two 150 gallon tanks, and a 60 gallon barrel. These all have fish I ordered last week in them. Nothing to interesting in these, but Im under construction outside.... will post some from out there before to long....

[texcollex]

Yes this is an interesting thread!

I've wanted for some time now to try raising rabbits with earthworm bins beneath them. Rabbits have a very high "feed to meat" ratio. The worms are raised in newspaper mulch and the rabbit poo feeds them richly. The extra worms produced could then be used for feedstock for fish or fowl. The worm "castings" which are left after the worms have eaten, can be used as rich garden fertilizer or sold for quite a good sum. I've even read a story about someone who was trying to process the worms as a protein feed either for animal or human consumption. I believe he purged the worms in saltwater to expel the grit from them, then dried them in the sun.

tex

[Treetop]

Yes this is an interesting thread!

I've wanted for some time now to try raising rabbits with earthworm bins beneath them. Rabbits have a very high "feed to meat" ratio. The worms are raised in newspaper mulch and the rabbit poo feeds them richly. The extra worms produced could then be used for feedstock for fish or fowl. The worm "castings" which are left after the worms have eaten, can be used as rich garden fertilizer or sold for quite a good sum. I've even read a story about someone who was trying to process the worms as a protein feed either for animal or human consumption. I believe he purged the worms in saltwater to expel the grit from them, then dried them in the sun.

tex

thanks for the post! that sounds like a great idea on the worms/rabbit set up. Both my chickens and the fish would love them. In fact Im adding more rabbits, I might include a worm bin down there.... sounds pretty easy to manage.

[walt2727]

yes, please keep the thread going! Even though I live near one of the many lakes here in Central Florida, it's interesting reading. Thank you for taking the time to update us on your progress.
Good Luck with it!!!

[Mossy]

yes, please keep the thread going! Even though I live near one of the many lakes here in Central Florida, it's interesting reading. Thank you for taking the time to update us on your progress.
Good Luck with it!!!

Back yard barrels are less prone to sprouting gators, cotton mouth, and snappers, though all three are edible.

Herons and king fisher are a problem some places. A recommendation I regret not being able to implement is to float a pane of glass or plexiglass just under the surface of the water. Another that should produce some entertainment is to get one of those rubber fish you anchor in place. Two anchors, one just enough to keep the fish in position and the other big enough anchor snatches the rubber fish right out of the bird's beak, with a bit of slack between the two weights.

Okay, so I'm mean.

[texcollex]

How are the fish doing? I was wondering if you've heard of using lava rocks for filter medium? Some of the koi pond builders around here fill a mesh bag with them and drop them in under the water outlet of the circulating pump. You can take them out periodically and hose them off and supposedly beneficial bacteria grow in them to purify the water.

Tex

[Treetop]

Can any of you here get israeli carp as a bait fish?? They are sold as bait in some places. I want to get back into raising the fish, and those are the best ones I just cant get them currently.

[texcollex]

Not familiar with Israeli carp. I only hear of minnows and goldfish around here as bait.

Just FYI, I have started raising the rabbits I mentioned before, but haven't gotten around to trying the earthworms. We have a nice flock of chickens, too!

[Treetop]

I switched to ducks over chickens so my neighbors werent so angry about the roosters. Still have rabbits and goats also, but the fish were alot of work for very little gain so that was mothballed for now. I havent bothered culturing worms yet, but Ive found it really easy to culture potato bugs, AKA pillbugs. They arent actually an insect but a crustacean, and so their shell has stuff great for egg production.

How are the rabbits going?

[johnbrickner]

How did I miss this one? I've been wanting to aquaculture since I knew what the word meant. Have to go back over these.

[Treetop]

By the end of it I had things set up a few different ways. I lost lots of fish to power outages more then once. I looked into non electric means to run things, and it can be done but would be really expensive if you werent using a larger amount of water, for something this small it would have to work well and reliably. I never did get to much in the way of fish out of it. Not compared to the effort and money involved. Honestly I dont think its worth it, if I had a small pond that is much different. Which is weird, reading online youd think smallscale aquaculture was cheap and easy with lots of benefits. Why grow inferior land based plants with a set up that can fail so readily if you loose power, that literally are potentially poisoning you? This fact is simply glossed over by most. growing the food for fish as I likely covered works well and saves needed infrastructure. Using lower densities takes away the need to have constant power but with the amount of water I was working with we are talking a handful of fish. Ive talked to large numbers of people raising fish like this in various ways, among them still people claiming its so easy and affordable. I can only assume they never bothered with a regular garden for their greens, and rabbits or ducks or chickens for their meat. My greens from the garden are easy to grow and never toxic as such systems can cause my rabbits or goats have never died over power outages and dont need expensive methods to block such an occurrence. I think people just get excited because they think it mirrors cycles in nature. Its definitely not cheap as many claim, youll spend several thousand minimum, much more for elaborate set ups for chickens, goats and rabbits. Youll need constant power, another major expense. The smaller the system the more intensely you need to monitor it and ensure ph and the like are in balance. I know when I need to feed my animals or water plants, no need to check on them beyond that all the time. Many also claim its easy, pffft not much more effort to milk my goats daily then it was to check on my fish set up. thousands of calories DAILY from the goat milk while also giving me meat a few times a year. Cant grow food for the fish over the cold months readily either unless I had a heated greenhouse, or underground one or something expensive.

Most Ive told just think I must have done it wrong, lots of people out there claiming how easy it is, and cheap. I didnt do it wrong though, I did play with water based plants but thats in fact easier and less expensive. Id LOVE to set up a small pond, variables much different that way. Actually discussed it on forums with others who do it, who lambasted me for saying all of the above, but then I list all the issues and ask them how they get around it. Lots of time and money of course. You could easily set up for goats, chickens or ducks and rabbits with a few hundred bucks, with no need for power and you cant even get decent tanks for your fish for that price let alone anything else. If you want meat from scratch and started with rabbits, you can have a steady supply readily within a few months, and little effort beyond having a good space for it, and dropping in some food and water daily. I grew and gathered their food most last summer and it wasnt much of a chore even then. You could have calories daily from day 1 if you bought a goat in milk, pretty easy to do in the spring. Carp take a few years to get to breeding size, the tilapia needed heating in winter but breed easy and young, but even with them and a few thousand gallons of water I wasnt getting the amounts of fish Id expect from the hype. I even had nice and respectable growth rates compared to my stocking densities. Not the top, but well above the median.

That said, based on all I did, If I lived in a place I could have a few ponds readily I would, at that size its a whole different game and you could get much more out of ponds or small lakes then one would generally associate with a body of water that size, you get buffers for all the issues I mentioned, and could have a productive set up without the possibility the power fails wiping you out, and without having to constantly track several variables to ensure the system is balanced, or rely on infrastructure that needs replaced repeatedly over time. I spent alot of time and money on this project. At this small scale, imo (to each his own of course) it just wasnt worth my efforts. It was a labor of love to be sure. If it was wetter here, Id set up a few ponds for the isreali carp if I can find them or for koi. I ate a few carp, they were great out of clean water. Even better if it were legal Id have a variation of the old asian systems with several fish, the common carps but also several asian types that really work well together. One of them, the black carp if I remember right, was lower in number in the setup and ate the wastes of the other fish, they were said to be the tastiest and most expensive. Or tilapia if in a warmer area, tilapia are so neat, but need it warm. A few ponds in a place warm enough for tilapia outside year round could be very productive.

At this point Ill get and raise a few of the israeli carp if I can get them, seems unlikely though. Apparently was a common bait in ohio and some close by areas until recently. should have kept what I used to have, didnt realize they are kinda taboo to use and apparently were mostly phased out, but by practice not by law. So instead Ill likely end up with a few koi, and Ill set back up all my tanks for a much lower number of fish. Just because. At lower densities I wont have any issues, I wont really be able to eat fish though, but I can water the garden from it as I used to, which the garden LOVES.