Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The Pacu fish

Has anyone raised these guys in aquaponics? I found some information that said they grow very quickly, they will eat most vegetable/plant matter, and they are very good at metabolizing plant proteins. Their meat was described as being "rich and buttery" when cooked. The downside is they have "floating Y-bones" that are difficult to fillet around.

Plus there's the whole wierdness factor of a fish with human-like teeth. They are amazonian fish and require similar conditions to Tilapia but are more disease resistant and even more tolerant of poor water quality. They supposedly tolerate very low pH water as well, which could be handy.

Seeems there are a few members using them

search.php?keywords=pacu&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

fair go ....you Americans are really weird wanting something like that.

Its just a herbivorous fish. You know it needs to chew hence the flat teeth.

I think they could be an excellent fish to grow. I'd be keen to know how much plant food you need to feed them though.

have a steady supply of testicles to feed them with

Yes maybe they should be called omnivorous rather than herbivorous.

I bet that they would love to chow on all the greens that don't tend to make it into our food. Consider how much plant matter we discard when preparing a meal. For example, when you harvest Rhubarb, the whole huge leaf gets tossed into the compost just so we can eat the stalk. Pacu might like to eat the leaf.

Yes but it might poison them.

I'm having trouble sourcing Black Pacu. I found one listing for Red Belly Pacu at $6.50 each for 2-4" fingerlings, but Black Pacu are the species being cultivated in aquaculture in south America, from what I've rea d. I am keen to get a few to try them out. Where could I obtain fingerlings near Portland, OR (west coast USA)?