One question:
What quantity of fish are we talking about? Feed the family or commercial scale?
Buddy has a one acre pond that had great small mouth bass fishing for a few years until they all died off one winter. No idea what the yield would have been, but you could pretty much be assured a few good sized fish when you cast a line.
In reply to stroker :
I'm a little irritated with you.
This thread may end up costing me money.
I had a saltwater aquarium for a lot of years and enjoyed it. This will be just as fun and you can eat them!
100 catfish are $60. A 1000 gallon above ground pool is $250. I already have the pumps and such.
The best time to start is in the spring so I have time to get everything up and running before I order the fish.
There might be a new build thread sometime in the future.
1988RedT2 said:RevRico said:1988RedT2 said:alfadriver said:From my reading, talapia is normally chosen because it's so robust to grow.
What you mean to say is that they tolerate foul conditions better than other species.
A "bible health ministry".. Really?
Regardless of your thoughts on that notion, they do cite some very authoritative sources, including the nih and epa.
Exactly- the info from that source follows exactly the same info I got from other sources. I was looking into aquaponics for some of my farming- and the ease of dealing with talapia is the core reason they are the leading fish to use.
NOHOME said:One question:
What quantity of fish are we talking about? Feed the family or commercial scale?
Buddy has a one acre pond that had great small mouth bass fishing for a few years until they all died off one winter. No idea what the yield would have been, but you could pretty much be assured a few good sized fish when you cast a line.
My original thought was fish for myself (see the "Liver Health" thread) but then I figured that if you were going to go to all that trouble, why not make it large enough to make a few bucks and pay off the initial investment? I'm planning on retiring in about six years so maybe I've got an idea for something to do then, but I fear this concept is much heavier in labor and time than I would want to invest. I know of indoor aquaponic production here in Missouri using former retail store space and I suspect there might be state/federal funds available to get something off the ground if you were serious about it. I'd think your labor pool would be filled with Ag students from the local university--you might even get set up for research grants, etc. I think I'd rather do something like that in my retirement than chase golf balls...
We got a bit off topic but why not buy a few live tilapia from the store (get about 6) stick them in an ibc tote and see if you can produce more.
I breed tropical fish and big cichlids like tilapia are usually pretty easy. The Google will tell you what you need to do.
Back to being on a tangent...
Wife unit and I ate at a great soul food restaurant in Washington state, I tried the catfish.
It didn't really taste like much of anything, just batter and spices.
Catfish isn't a thing up here in Canada like it is in the USA. I just don't get it.
I remember when I was a kid they had a "Fishing Pond" at the large outdoor show ,
for a couple bucks you got a fishing pole that was already baited and you could but it in the Pond and catch a fish ( they were very hungry ) big deal when you were 7 years old.
so how about making your pool into a fishing pond for the kids and maybe a fish fry at the end of the day .....
ShawnG said:Wife unit and I ate at a great soul food restaurant in Washington state, I tried the catfish.
It didn't really taste like much of anything, just batter and spices.
Catfish isn't a thing up here in Canada like it is in the USA. I just don't get it.
You didn't have it in the south. And I say that, never having been in the south lmao
GIRTHQUAKE said:ShawnG said:Wife unit and I ate at a great soul food restaurant in Washington state, I tried the catfish.
It didn't really taste like much of anything, just batter and spices.
Catfish isn't a thing up here in Canada like it is in the USA. I just don't get it.
You didn't have it in the south. And I say that, never having been in the south lmao
To be fair, it really does just taste like the cornmeal batter and whatever seasonings they put in it and whatever hot sauce that particular establishment has on the table.
Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to ShawnG :
And that's an insult to wonderbread.
Not when it's blackened in the fry pan with Emeril's essence awaiting angel hair coleslaw(with cilantro) .....pico de gallo ...on a flour tortilla
Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to ShawnG :
And that's an insult to wonderbread.
Not when it's blackened in the fry pan with Emeril's essence awaiting angel hair coleslaw(with cilantro) .....pico de gallo ...on a flour tortilla
759NRNG said:Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to ShawnG :
And that's an insult to wonderbread.
Not when it's blackened in the fry pan with Emeril's essence awaiting angel hair coleslaw(with cilantro) .....pico de gallo ...on a flour tortilla
I'm sure if you did that to rat or pigeon it would taste good too.
Hard no on farmed tilapia.
GIRTHQUAKE said:ShawnG said:Wife unit and I ate at a great soul food restaurant in Washington state, I tried the catfish.
It didn't really taste like much of anything, just batter and spices.
Catfish isn't a thing up here in Canada like it is in the USA. I just don't get it.
You didn't have it in the south. And I say that, never having been in the south lmao
Soul Food in Washington state? Unless it was a E36 M3 hole on the side of a 2 lane country road in South Georgia or South Carolina, it probably wasn't soul food. I have a hard time finding it in Charleston. Food is definitely different in the south, and different again when you get outside of the cities down here.
Catfish belong in a stew with okra, a little corn, tomatoes, celery, barley or rice, and a large dose of pepper.
Fried is OK, but like most freshwater fish they don't have a strong flavor so seasonings are important or you completely cover the taste of the fish. Unfortunately most restaurants destroy food thinking spice is all you should taste.
In reply to Toyman! :
https://www.southernkitchen-tacoma.com/
In reply to ShawnG :
Yep. Hard no because of one picture. There isn't a true soul food restaurant in the world that would serve chopped canned collards with stems. What you have is a hipster restaurant pretending to be a soul food restaurant.
In reply to 759NRNG :
Wahoo would be better served for such treatment
I can't help but feel that we've drifted off topic with our petty bickering.
Mind, I'm not saying I'm not guilty too. 
In reply to Toyman! :
I also dont see huge chunks of pork.
In my experience, when a "humble" food is recreated for the masses, it usually misses the mark. And the more "authentic" they claim to be, the more expect the opposite to be true.
i like both Catfish and Tilapia. I have had both of them be horrible at times too.
if you treat the fish right, kill it and clean it right, then cook it right, its awesome.
Some frozen, dirty fish that wasn't bled or cleaned right is never going to taste great.
i have converted many people to catfish from the local lakes. I keep them alive for a few days, changing their water out. They flush a bunch of mud out. Then when its time to cook, i cut their tales to let them bleed out and keep hosing them down. Skin them, fillet em, put nice white blood free fillet in ice water. Fry em up in corn meal mix. Eat like a king.
Here's something to think about WRT talapia. If YOU are growing it, you control what they eat. Which really means you end up controlling what they taste like. That being said, I hate fish, so other than sort of looking into it, I didn't get too far. That, and I've still not figured out how to passive heat my greenhouse. Fish don't swim well when their pool is hard frozen.
In reply to alfadriver :
I was going to say a good circulation pump will keep water moving enough not to freeze, but then I remembered how much further north you are than I am.
In reply to RevRico :
At 45 degrees or so the fish are going to die. They stop growing below 60.
I had a farmer friend that had a pond behind his house in south Georgia and raised channel catfish, as most pond raised cats are. This guy invited me and a coworker to eat fish at his mothers one day and he had catfish filets, bass and bluegill. I had never been able to eat the catfish my father caught because they were the mudsucking bottom feeders. I swear the catfish tasted like chicken and I had a hard time eating the bass and bluegill, which were my favorite fish up to then.
The Chinese harvest salmon from ponds and stock the ponds with tilapia. The tilapia eat the salmon poop and grow quickly. I refuse to eat tilapia.
I've done some studying. Looks like I will probably be setting up a recirculating aquaculture system. I love plumbing and water, so it should be fun.
Since there is some question about vinyl from pool liners leaching into the fish I think I pass on the pool. A common tank for use in a backyard setup is and IBC tote. They are a little industrial looking for me.
I think I will be using a 300 gallon stock tank. Tilapia need 3.74 gallons per pound of fish so that would be 40-80 fish depending on harvest size. Channel Catfish need 8 gallons per pound of fish so that would be 18-37 fish depending on harvest size. I would probably start on the low end of the scale and work my way up from there.
The filters will be made out of 60-gallon pickle drums. I can pick those up locally for $20.
In reply to Toyman! :
I will be following your efforts with great interest...
EDIT: You should start a separate thread on this project.
Those rubbermaid stock tanks are tough as nails and the flat bits on the sides will let you use common bulkhead fittings easily.
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