Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hey guys,

I've just put together a small AP with goldfish as a trial.

It's been about a month, and so far I've been feeding a mixture of blanched veggies ( spinach, lettuce, broccoli, zucchini and shelled string beans) and a feed of baby tiger worms as a treat.

so far they seem pretty happy, but I'm interested in breeding other live feed - I've read Brine shrimp are good for fry, but can't find info on feeding them to adults. consensus on bloodworms seems to be, they're too difficult to breed.. is this true?

a friend of mine breeds crickets, but I imagine they're too big for goldies....

Who is breeding their own feed? and what are you using?

Also, I should add - my idea is to produce the entirety of feed - to maintain the fish on a diet of various wholefoods.

I see a lot of people are asking the same question and responses are consistently recommending commercial fish feed. that's good but someone is making this feed. so what's in commercial feed that we can't produce at home? Surely there are alternatives that provide a balanced diet.

I like the idea of running a flourescent tube light above the fish tank at night time, to attract flying insects, which inadvertently hit the water surface and get stuck - becoming free fish food

also it can't be that hard to raise your own insects for fish food?

yeah, a night light could work. I don't want moth in my tank though.
thanks jono.

I saw another post by someone here suggesting daphnia - not something i'd heard of before.

so my idea at the present stage is to feed mainly a veggie diet (various blanched vegtables as stated above) with occasional feeding of red tiger worms and daphnia which I will breed myself fed on yeast.

does anyone foresee any malnourishment?


edit: I'm not looking for max growth - I'm aiming to establish healthy fish first and foremost.

I'd be interested to know if your goldfish eat the red tiger worms... my silver perch wouldn't touch them, which I suspect was due to the offputting odour they emit for self protection when distressed.

There's quite a few websites out their suggesting fish won't go for tiger worms for this reason. Earthworms don't have this trait.

But on the other hand, all the local service stations around my area sell red tiger worms for bait around here.. so who knows

It would be good to hear your experiences with them regardless

The general consensus here seems to be to still incorporate a portion of commercial fish feed in their diet to be safe.

I think it really depends though on how much time and energy you have available to throw into the project.

If I were you, I would go for it though.. give it a shot and report your findings. If you have the resources, you could always setup a seperate fish tank and feed one batch of fish a purely natural diet, and the other lot a part natural diet supplemented with a commercial feed, and see how the two batches of fish compare in regards to growth rates etc

I'm keen to supplement more of my fish feed too, just finding the time to do it is a challenge at the moment

they love the worms!. they where pulling them from each others mouths as they tried burping em down.

I adopted the worm farm so I can't be 100% sure on the type of worm. but looking at pics online, mine only resemble tigers. i'm using baby worms as the fish are still small.

I got some brine shrimp today and some duckweed.

i'll let you know how it pans out.

that's good to know

You've reinspired me to try feeding worms again