raising fish for food? Update #109!!

[Farmerman]

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Ive got freshwater mussels in with my fish, they seem to be doing well, snails also.... Both of them will apparently breed right in there, and need to be thinned.....

With shrimp and crayfish, you can do them really well actually, but unless you have a large lake they arent easy to keep in the same water as fish. The fish will eat the shrimps as i understand it. And crayfish carry diseases that affect the fish as i understand it. generally each of those is cultured alone.

 

[Wifezilla]

What everyone said about carp is true. If the water is good they are living in the taste is delicious. I am from WI and we used to eat sucker too, but you would only fish for it during the spring thaw when lots of clear snow melt was flooding in to the rivers. Any other time of the year you took the fish and buried it in the garden for fertilizer. Smoked sucker is the best fish I have ever had.

 

[protodon]

I'd like to hear more about growing crayfish. Do they have the same requirements as fish? I considered an aquaponics setup but then I realized that I'm not too crazy about the taste of freshwater fish, it has that woody/soily aftertaste. So if I did one, i would do it with koi just for show but growing crayfish is something I could maybe get into.

 

[Farmerman]

I couldnt help you with crayfish, but I plan to try them here before to long. As I understand it, they can be pretty easy.....

 

[CDennis]

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What is your set up like?

 

[mrsengeseth]

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I do mine mostly the same too, good info . I'd love to see your set up and such!!

as to the OP first post...Also FWIW raccoons aren't going to eat one or two of your fish...They'll keep goming back for more. and they'll bring more raccoons if they find a plethera of fish in your tanks. We made a hardware cloth cover for ours and they still managed to get in. I have to lay a heavy duty board over the top that I have rigged a lock onto to keep them from moving it. I am sure there's a smarter way to keep them out, I haven't found it. I have a photo somewhere on my cam where you can see...a fox with it's head in the water...not ten feet from my hens (who were locked up for the night). Everything likes fish it seems.

I'd love to get into mussels!! Where'd you get yours Farmerman?

 

[mrsengeseth]

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Colorado Aquaponics...up in Denver. They're all kindsa helpful.

Lemme see if i can find their contact info.

http://www.coloradoaquaponics.com/ look in their resources area...lots there. Also I hear stories of a guy in Peyton or Falcon who stocks too.

 

[Farmerman]

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What is your set up like?

Still a work in progress for now....

Im using 55 gallon drums indoors for now, I will be using several 180 gallon tanks outdoors throughout the summer, might try a kiddy pool to, because mine rarely jump. As well as setting up "sand filters" and other things. Eventually Im going to build a retention pond, but that will be a few years off. which is also why I like carp and to a lesser degree tilapia (tilapia NEEDS to be indoors for winter and heated) because you can stock at high densities if you keep the water in line. Im not the guy to ask about that really, just think carp gets a bad rap, and is under appreciated. Tilapia gets the same poor taste in the same types of water.

To mrsengeseth--- I got them on ebay. I was going to order more I didnt see them, Im guessing they stopped selling them for winter.

 

[mrsengeseth]

Quote:
Colorado Aquaponics...up in Denver. They're all kindsa helpful.

Lemme see if i can find their contact info.

http://www.coloradoaquaponics.com/ look in their resources area...lots there. Also I hear stories of a guy in Peyton or Falcon who stocks too. aquaponics.com has lots of information too. Come spring I'll be resetting my humble system. You'd be welcome to check it out.

 

[mrsengeseth]

ebay?!?! It never occured to me DOh! I am so glad I ran into you on this thread. I'd have never thought to look there. I ran into a lot of "brick walls" trying to order from different suppliers elsewhere, did you have to deal with a lot of that going through private sellers on ebay? Man, i can't believe it didn't occur to me to try that!