Many people love tilapia, the grocery stores are full of it now, but I really prefer catfish. AND I have found a source right here in Arizona! It is Brown's Fish Farm, located way down at the south end of the state, but they do deliver and my 100 fingerlings will be here this coming week! First I had to get a permit from the Game & Fish department (cost = 0) and fax it down to Brown's so it can travel with the fish.
I am really excited and hope this all works. I am working on their habitat now. It is a 300-gallon horse water trough. I have a 12-volt pump for it and will hook it up to a filter made from a coffee can on the intake and the water will flow back into the tank, providing aeration. Now and then I'll run some of the water out onto the veg garden and refill it with fresh. I have two solar panels and a battery to supply power to the pump. I need to get out there and do some soldering on one of the solar panels, then start hooking everything up.
This is only a summer project, I hope to harvest them all before it gets really cold, usually late October. Wish me luck!
Tilapia no, Catfish yes
Good luck! Keep us posted!
I will be following this with interest. Do you mean you will be harvesting the larger ones before winter and overwintering the smaller ones?
Cajun, I don't think I will be able to overwinter any fish because the whole tank is liable to freeze solid in December/January. I have no idea how fast catfish grow, despite all the info I have from the internet and from a book on aquaculture I've had for several years. I just hope they are eating size by November 1! An d I hope to begin harvesting them as soon as they are.
It has been raining here for 3 days, love it, but it has kept me from getting much done on the fish tank. I have made a bench that sits on the top of the tank for mounting the pump etc, and made two short garden hoses out of one old long one, scrounging parts from whereever. Anyway it is all ready to go except for soldering the solar panel connection (keep putting it off because I am such a bad solderer), and use my battery charger on the battery because it has been sitting for a month or 2. I will post a picture when I get the whole shebang working. ( If.)
How deep is your tank and how many fish do plan to put in it?
The tank is 2 feet deep, 3 feet wide, and 92 inches long. Holds 300 gallons of water. I read about this in the "Farm Show" newspaper, but the guy who told about his didn't put in any details such as where he got them or how he filtered the water, what he fed them, how fast they grew. He said he bought 100 baby catfish (kittenfish??) every spring and harvested them all each fall. It took me a long time to find a source, but I have 100 of the little guys (2-3") on the way. This morniing I got the pump & filter hooked up and put on the bench and connected it to the battery and it works fantastic! Only ONE problem, it is noisy like you wouldn't believe! I am going to cut 2 pieces of hose to go under the ends of the bench where it touches the metal tank, and make a cover for the pump -- maybe I can insulate it too. Here is a picture. The coffee can has filter material in it and it goes into the water near the bottom of the far end. The other hose, with the sprayer, will stick down through a hole in the board and spray the return water back into the tank:
What are you feeding theam ?
Very ingenious. I will be following this one with interest.
i think a 100 fingerlings are to many as they grow you may want to add a few large air stones paul
My step-father always bought about 100 trout fingerlings about 6" long around Easter when they came up to their summer cottage with a small pond. He fed them all summer, and by late September/early October when he fished them out to freeze and take back home, they would be up to around a pound each.
Rule of thumb is for every one inch of fish you need one gallon of water. Did you get them yet?
No, still waiting for the hatchery to call me with date & time & place. They have several deliveries in a town about 1.5 hours away from me so I will have to go over there to pick them up and pay for them. Cost is $1.08 each plus tax, and they are supposed to be 2", so Paul, maybe 100 is too many. I may lose some of them due to shock or whatever, anyway. Re the air stones, I looked at them at PetsMart and decided I'd try it with just the recirculating water for awhile to see how it goes. I've raised goldfish & koi before and know the signs of lack of oxygen, build up of toxins, etc. and hope I can forestall those conditions.
Re feed, now don't scream at me (LOL), but I have compared the nutritive value of catfish food to that of . . . cat food! And find them very similar. Dry cat food (fish flavor, natch) is a little fattier but it is easier to come by. Have no idea of the relative cost but I am sure it is not available locally and the online prices for commercial catfish feed are out of sight. In San Jose, CA, back in the early 70's, that is what they were feeding the huge koi at the Japanese Gardens, so that is what I fed my goldfish & koi and they seemed to thrive on it. A person on the fishpond forum was very upset when I said that that's what I fed my koi with but hey, I did it and it worked. Plus, they got whatever insects fell into their pond due to the bug light that I had hanging over the pond. Have one for the catfish tank, too.
Darius, the trout sound lovely. Probably couldn't keep them in a tank, though. A 1-pound catfish wold be big enough to eat, wouldn't it?
yup one pound is good
Also remember that the water needs to cycle before you can add the catfish. The cycling process should take about 30-40 days. This is so the bacteria that eat Ammonia and Nitrites can establish so they can convert waste to Nitrates. I usually just throw some frozen shrimp and goldfish into the water to jump start the process. Gravel from someones pond or aquarium is also a great way to start. You can get some
all-n-one test strips from Petsmart that will let you know when it has finally left the Nitrite phase and it is safe to start adding fish. I usually add a few plants to the mix to help stablize the water, eat the nitrates and introduce the helpful bacteria you want. If you have a hydryllia infestation somewhere local, just grab some and put it in there. Make sure you destroy the plants if you drain the tank since they are invasive.
If you introduce all those fish before 40ish days, I would expect a 30 percent mortality rate. However, those catfish are tough as nails. I found a 4 pound mud cat living in 4 inches of water in a ditch on my property had probably been there for years.
Aaargh, I did.not.know.that! I am using well water, will that make a difference? I have frozen shrimp in the freezer, can I use that? Also some mud on the bottom of what used to be my goldfish tank. The guy at Petsmart said they'd be happy to analyze my water if I brought some in, but the nearest Petsmart is 3 hours away!
theres some stuff in the stores you can buy to help the pet stores in you have any water standing around in buckets or other add it to your water paul
Well water certainly makes a difference. If the water has been treated then it killed the bacteria. Untreated water will have the bacteria in it already. The bacteria will live in the gravel and sides of the tank once it gets established. If the mud from your goldfish tank is still wet and never dried out completely then it would be great to add to jump start the system. Remember, you are creating an eco-system in that tank. Just adding one or two frozen shrimp are going to cause the system to spike with ammonia which then force the ammonia eating bacteria to multiply quickly. Ammonia is very toxic to fish. Once the ammonia eating bacteria have multiplied they will eat all the ammonia and excrete nitrite. That will cause your system to spike with nitrites which are toxic but not quite as toxic as ammonia. Then the nitrite bacteria will multiply and turn the nitrites into nitrates which are acceptable at rates of 40ppm or less. That is your goal. You want zero ammonia, zero nitrites and 40ppm or less of nitrates. My goldfish pond is estabished with plants and gravel. It has tested at zero, zero, 5ppm for the last few years. I rarely test it anymore. It has green fuzzy algae on the sides of the tank which is a good sign.
Go to ebay and order some 5n1 aquarium test strips. They may not test for ammonia because that phase usually goes by so fast but they will test for nitrite and nitrates. Use one strip per week. Dont test each day or you will drive yourself crazy and the cycles dont change that quickly.
Jujube, my eyes glazed over a little bit while reading your post, but I think I get the picture! Great suggestion on the test strips, I will get some!
My goldfish/koi pond where I used to live had a lot of algae, but not the "algae bloom" stuff that turns stringy when you pull it out, and I thought it was very healthy. The fish seemed happy and healthy, and I saw them when they came up to feed. I would tap a rock on another one in a pattern that they quickly learned meant "food coming", and there would be a feeding frenzy! I had a couple of air stones, pump, and a small fountain and that's all. I had various pond plants, water lilies etc. but don't plan on plants in the catfish tank.
I did cut some pieces of garden hose to put under the shelf the pump is on and it helps quite a bit with noise reduction. Gotta call the hatchery tomorrow and find out when they are coming and where to meet the driver.
Paul, since it has rained a lot the past few days my rain barrels are full, but they contain runoff from the roof so may have contaminants. Jujube, the mud in the bottom of the goldfish tank has dried out, been rained/snowed on, dried out, rained/snowed on, etc for over a year now. Probably some groovy bacteria in there.
I sure appreciate all the tips you guys are giving me!
Groovy? LOL Paul
Yeah, groovy! Gave up on the pump I bought specially for this project, used too many watts. I dug out an old 12Vdc pump that had been sitting around, put a check valve on it to maintain its prime, and connected it directly to an 85W solar panel array I hadn't been using for anything else. Ta da, it works fine and will pump & filter from 8 am to 4 pm, until the panels are in the shade, every day. This is after much trial & error. I need to have this running at least that long, daily, for the week I will be gone (next week). Now I'm working on the auto feeder but the instructions are extremely inadequate, to say the least.
Still haven't gotten the test strips but the fish are coming in two days. I threw in a handful of aged horse manure (read that in a book somewhere) and my DIL is going to give me some plants & sludge from her fishpond today, so if the catfish can live through all of this I may have a good system going eventually. Obviously I have changed my mind about not having plants, I guess you need them to keep the water healthy.
I gave up on the sprinkler head return, too, it got clogged immediately. Now the water just pours out of the garden hose after going through the filter and pump. .
Biodiversity rocks in closed systems. Some plants create more junk that others. I like the reeds that grow straight up about 4 feet. They create almost no debris.
Wow!! Very interesting! I to love catfish! May I ask what it is you will with them once you harvest them? I mean how big do they have to be and, how are you able to sell them commercially? Or are they only for your personal consumption?
I hope to raise them to eating size by the end of summer, and then harvest them & eat some and freeze some.
Actually I just hope to be able to raise them at all. I spoke too soon about how all the fish survived the travelling here -- yesterday dead ones began floating up. None today, but so far I have lost 35 of them. (Who was it said I would probably lose 30%?) The hatchery man gave me some little oxygen "pills" and advised me to get a bag of ice, and felt they would be ok for the hour it would take me to get them home. Unfortunately, due to my own stupidity, it took me 2 hours to get home and at the halfway point many of them were gasping for oxygen. I added the rest of the ice and raced for home, sloshing water all over. When I got here I dipped them out a bucket at a time and put them in my 300 gal tank, and they all appeared to revive and swim -- to the bottom of the tank, of course. The water is still murky so I haven't been able to observe, but it is starting to clear now. I am hoping that the remaining 65 are okay and will adapt to their new home.
This is the first time I have ever felt sorry for a fish. 8^(
make sure you have some shade over part of the pond Paul
OK, thanks. I put a 1/4 sheet of plywood over one end and put rocks on top to make sure the pscho wind doesn't blow it off. Water still murky today but no dead fish yesterday or today. The auto feeder seems to work okay. The food gets saturated and sinks: I hope the fish are eating it down there at the bottom. I alsoput some plywood on the sunny side of the tank to help keep it from overheating on hot days. Today it is cool and cloudy.
in the fall if you put a 250 watt heater you could hold a couple over the winter for some bigger fish paul
Dear Grammie.
Happy Birthday!!!
How are the fishies???
Hugs BajaBlue
Thanks for the birthday greetings, Baja. I think I was sill in ICU on my birthday -- my appendix suddenly burst with almost no warning on Sept. 16th, had surgery at 11 pm, and it was a total mess. Got home last Sunday but am still on heavy pain & antibiotic meds and not feeling too good yet. If my son hadn't happened to be out here on the 16th and dragged me to the hospital, I'd probably be very dead by now. I tell ya, I wouldn't wish a burst appendix on my worst ex-husband!
Re the Great Catfish Experiment, I managed to kill the first hundred catfish so ordered 50 more. Half of those died the first couple of days, but there were still lots left. But after being gone 2 weeks due to my appendix, the last ones also died. Can't imagine why, I think their habitat is super, the little mosquito fish I put in there have not only survived happily but also multiplied!
Oh well, there's always next year. And thank God, only one appendix per customer!
Sorry about the fish. I didn't know they were so hard to raise. Glad you are feeling better.
Wow! You're living the adventure for sure! Hope the bending and stretching is going OK now, and thanks for all the info on your great catfish experiment. Can't wait for the next installment...
And thank heavens for winter coming, eh?
=0)
Yeah, we are expecting our firs snow Wednesday. My son and DIL are working really hard to finish the FORMIDABLE green house (10x24) by Tuesday morning so we can move the little dwarf citrus trees & dwarf fig I bought last spring into it. It is incredible. We got lots of 4x4s for about 1/4 retail price, and lots of free double paned windows. I'll post pix one of these days on the greenhouse forum.
The great catfish experiment is on hold until next spring. I don't know why the last bunch died, they should have loved their new home!
Meanwhile, the appendix is still trying to kill me. There have been several complications since the original surgery and I have been in and out of the hospital. Never knew a burst appendix was such a major deal. I'm scheduled for cat scan #4 this coming Thursday. Hopefully it will show that i'm finally getting over this thing. I've been at my kids' house in Heber for 5 weeks -- came home to the ranch today and it is so good to be here. 8^)
Good heavens! You've really had a tough time of it these last few weeks, that's for sure. Great that you've got relatives to stay with during this time. And best wishes for your #4 cat scan.
Neat about the new GH, hope you'll post the pictures here too. =0) My GH has inspired a friend to build one of her own...