fish in a barrel, low tech.

[silverseeds]

http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/2009/06/raising-catfish-in-barrel.html

I thought Id share this. Ive been reading a bunch about this lately. It seems tilapia is by far the best to raise for such a system. But Im going to try a few others as well, so I could convert to an outdoors system when I am able or have to.

This article is about raising catfish in a 55 gallon barrel. they talk of changing 15 gallons a day, as a low tech way of keeping the nitrates and ammonia and the like at lower levels. Im going to do that along with growing plants, which takes out most of those things. but if you look into it, you need a rather large area of plants per fish, would not be sufficient small scale. so like I said I intend to change out perhaps 10 gallons or whatever the balances ends up being to keep it in line......

Long term(after a few other projects are complete) Im going to make a solar still set up hopefully enough to clean enough water daily to keep my tanks in line. this way I wont have to use my city water, which may or may not have issues. It is also manual.

[Atash Hagmahani]

Tilapia are easy to keep. That's because...

* they breath air. They don't suffocate slightly crowded--although they ARE prone to overpopulating due to the fact that they are mouth-brooders (meaning they don't eat their young, or allow other fish to do so--the bane of trying to keep most fish in tanks...).

* they are easy to breed. In fact, they tend to over-breed.

* THEY ARE HERBIVOROUS, LOW-TROPHIC fish! Meaning you can feed them vegetable scraps, and they'll survive. They usually get...ah...significantly worse than that...disgusting...but for the home aquaculturist, vegetable scraps are easy.

They do require warm water--and I mean WARM not just above freezing. It's a tropical fish.

There are other options for cold water, but bad news: they are HIGHLY regulated. Various types of herbivorous Chinese carps, that are also easy to keep (some will survive in rice fields while they are flooded!). All of them are totally illegal in my state. They are a bit "too" easy--they outcompete native fish.

Your best bets among native fish are probably catfish and carp. Things that are relatively more tolerant of stagnant water and aren't too picky about food.

I always wonder about crayfish (which I don't think are herbivorous--but still relatively easy to keep--I mean, they just sorta show up on their own...). I say a video clip of Swedes eating crayfish today. Pretty-looking red ones.

[silverseeds]

Dang I figured as much about the cold tolerant carp, from china. I mean I knew there had to be a cold tolerant fish tat would work as well. That is to bad. I do understand the impact certain invasive species can have(although I think some can be beneficial) but it sure would be great to be able to raise fish outdoors as efficiently as you can raise tilapia indoors.

I read that tilapia grow 1 pound per 1.2 pounds of food they eat. I believe catfish, and a few others were around 4 to 1. and bass were 10 to 1.

that is a super efficient little fish. It is also harder to breed most of these fish, unlike tilapia, which like atash said can even overpopulate easily. Tilapia also can thrive at very high concentrations if the water is kept in check.

Im going to figure this out, I really want to start raising some of our meat(all of it if I cant perfect a mostly manual system for these fish), and I cannot use chickens with my homeowners association I would think. although I will check into it soon. 2 hens for eggs would be great.

[Atash Hagmahani]

Check your state's laws. Maybe being a dryland state, it is more lenient. Western Washington has water all over the place, so our state is one of the most strict. :(

Outside of the USA, Chinese herbivorous carp are extremely popular for fish-farming, on both large and small scales. Common in places like Russia. In most countries they are lenient, knowing that people need to eat, or make a living...

[The Future]

Was it Archer Philip Daniels who is doing the large scale intergrated plant(beets?)-ethanol-Co2-greenhouse-tilapia farming...?

[offdalip]

I really want to start raising some of our meat(all of it if I cant perfect a mostly manual system for these fish), and I cannot use chickens with my homeowners association

you can always try rabbits

http://www.alpharubicon.com/primitive/raisingrabbitspointman.htm

[silverseeds]

I really want to start raising some of our meat(all of it if I cant perfect a mostly manual system for these fish), and I cannot use chickens with my homeowners association

you can always try rabbits

http://www.alpharubicon.com/primitive/raisingrabbitspointman.htm

Yes, I have thought of raising rabbits in a passive way at my land. (which is 5 acres outside of town, now Im on 1/4 acre in town) what I would like to do for now is starting setting up habitat for wild rabbits, hiding spots, forage foods for them etc. this is a arid region so there is a ton of room for improvement, I think I could easily raise the number of rabbits on my land by 3-4.

Long term Im going to have a large fence for deer, so I can have fruit trees, and hopefully keeping out deer, so the rabbit habitat Ive built up in the time i takes to get the fence, I could move in meat rabbits, and intensify the set up...... since ive been thinking about rabbits in that fashion I didnt think of raising them here for some reason. Its only been recently I was getting serious about raising meat as well, and the fish I thought of. so yeah I think rabbits could work just fine.

mmmm wonder if I can raise enough food, on site?

[offdalip]

The nice thing about rabbits is they don't give out their presence. they are opsec, but then so are fish

[Atash Hagmahani]

Was it Archer Philip Daniels who is doing the large scale intergrated plant(beets?)-ethanol-Co2-greenhouse-tilapia farming...?

Yeah, I have a feeling that not competing with large-scale plantation operations is the real issue. This country is not really run by Bambi-huggers. Our federal government openly encourages a lot of practices offshore that are banned onshore. Everything from no minimum wage, to various regulated crops, to fish-farming.

[opsec]

An animal that nobody ever seems to pay attention to is the lowly muskrat. Just get a breeding pair and let them loose in the nearest body of water and they will multiply just like rabbits, are easy to harvest via traps and taste good too.

[Mike]

What do muskrat taste like? 'possum?

[offdalip]

why take the extra step?

just go fer da possum,tas jus like chiken day saz

also got dem armadilos an gatorz

[opsec]

What do muskrat taste like? 'possum?

A trapper I used to be friends with says they taste like the best beef you've ever had.

[silverseeds]

  Okay, I now have fish coming this next week. Im trying both tilapia and israeli carp AKA mirror carp. Which is a mutation of common carp, that grow faster then the others. In china alone more of these are raised then all other farmed raised fish in the world combined according to wikipedia. Its been farmed since at least 300 b.c. the romans farmed them, a practice that still exists in europe today in a few monasteries. We have them in america because they were stocked as a food fish. Despite them being popular all over europe farmed and caught wild, and associated with a christmas eve dinner, it never took in america. It has to many bones for a good fillet apparently.

    that is fine by me. I found a great source for the fish as well. Through ebay. I got to talking to a guy who had some bulk amounts of fish, and a proven track record of shipping them, and Im getting a dozen of each at breeding age, and fifty 1-2 inch tilapia shipped, for less then I found any other source, for only 24 or less 1-2 inch tilapia. Then in a week, I will order a batch of the small israeli or mirror carp. He had many other types of fish as well, but these two I ordered although maybe not the tastiest fish, are both widely eaten, and easy to feed. I got some adults as well, so I can start breeding the next generation ASAP. Im ordering about 200 of the 1-2 inch mirror carps, so I can start eating them ASAP as well. I should be eating a few small ones here and there in a few months, and supplying all my families meat within a year. If I had a pond this would be very very easy, but even without one, it shouldnt be to bad. Im using 60 gallon drums for now, with plans for larger outside set ups for next spring. 

    Im going to grow all their food. Lots of things I can experiment with there, but I should be able to feed them well enough. Atleast next spring, and after.

   

[opsec]

Can you post pics for us when you get this all set up?