Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok so I have been searching the web all night trying to find an organic food for trout or really any carnivore. I have found plenty of options for omnivores. Anyone one have ideas? I just hate feeding fish, over fished fish... Seems like it defeats the purpose. I am not in a place either to grow BSF or anything like that right now.

Theres many feed alternatives and this has been discussed extensively in the past but there is no replacement for aquaculture pellets that are formulated for optimum fish and plant growth.

Heres a few links that may help you discover some feed options..

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=8531&hilit=feed

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=190&hilit=alternative

Organic feed is very hard to find, there just hasn;t been the market for it. Some was produced here in Aus for a little while but I think they may have stopped production, plus it was for omnivours..

Oh, by organic I was thinking worms, bugs, duckweed etc etc

Yeah I might have to think about omnivores instead of trout and perch. I have found a good organic feed that doesn't seem to be a crazy price.

Sounds good. Care sharing what it is?

I talked to a maker of organic feed here in the states and he was telling me USDA still allows some 5% or 10% to be inorganic, whatever.... If you do find one it's going to cost you. The omnivore feed I saw was 1000% more than commercial feeds :/

http://premiumfishfood.com/ultimate-org ... -food.html this was the one that I found. Yeah I know that all USDA cert organic stuff isn't 100% organic. They can even say 100% organic and still have 10% be unorganic and us labling laws allow for it. We here in the states have some messed up laws. But 90% is better then nothing.

I was also looking for something organic along with something made of flax seed to increase omega oils in our trout. So far not much luck.

I was very off track with this one...

Maybe look for something in the States that supplies something like THESE PEOPLE do in Australia? Look for anyone who supplies to salmon or trout farms.

Journeyman I can't tell is this an organic feed company? I mean I know outside of the US it doesn't need to be labeled organic but I am kinda confused... Charlie its all good, maybe one of these days I will do something like that though

I wouldn't worry too much about 'Organic' labels, particularly in the US. It's a marketing tool they keep trying to export and even here in Australia there is no guarantee it is actually natural. In Australia we go the other way - it is law that companies MUST provide detailed ingredients information on the pack - many products the sheeple buy have 5 or more chemicals so lab-oriented they are identified with numbers, not names.

And you can look up those numbers and see what they do - a friend recently bought me a couple of 'Aero' chocolate mousse packs. 6 numbers, 3 are carcinogens, 1 is Aspartame (an evil all by itself - 92 side effects including brain problems and death) - they went straight to the bin. (trash)

That company produces fish food using no land-based animal products - your fish are getting everything abut as natural as they can get given you're buying it in bags.

Find someone who is providing to salmon farms or trout farms and has similar standards to BigNutrition and I would think you should be OK.

The problem with Flax seed is that it has short chain Omega 3 fatty acids in it, while these are good (and somewhat needed as they increase our LDL levels), they are poorly converted in our body (less than 5% in males, though women do convert them somewhat better) to the long chain Omega 3 fatty acids we need. The form we need the most of is DHA which is a long chain Omega 3 fatty acid. There are only a few supplemental sources of it that I know of and those are fish fats, animal eyes and brains, and a product called DHAgold. DHAgold is the only vegetarian source that I know of.

DHAgold I believe would not qualify for organic certification, in most countries. I believe there is a form that does not use chemical clumping agents in its harvest, which would be closer to organic standards. But as all of it is basically grown hydroponically, with chemical inputs, it would likely not qualify and it is not certified as an organic input currently. In the US this problem is somewhat taken care of by allowing 90% organic inputs to be certified organic, the problem with trout feed is that between 9-11% of the feed should be DHAgold, which leaves you with very little options for the other needed ingriedients you might not be able to get Organically.

This is Dr. Barrows vegetarian trout feed formula: http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=21911

The main problem I have with it is there is no supplemental EPA (another of the long chain Omega 3 fatty acids) in it. While I'm sure the fish convert some of the ALA (from the flax seed) into EPA a dietary source would be better.

The Aquaponic Source on facebook wrote;

Fish Can Now Be Certified Organic! We just found out that QCS in Florida (Quality Certifying Services) is certifying fish fed our AquaOrganic Feed as USDA Organic. A first!

I've send a query about how can fish that has been raised under a cover or in tap water could be certified organic ? I'm still waiting to get an answer, but I think that will be the same as the benefit for member of the association! Looks to me just MARKETING strategy.


In europe an Organic source of Fish food is only fish meal, as soy meal are not a natural trout food they are not allowed in organic aquaculture, hence you really have no choice but feed fish to fish, on the other hand that will help to manage the bycatch that ultimately will be trown back at sea otherwise.
I can guarantee that soy meal in feeds it's defenetly GMO crops, unfortunately the lack of regulation in animal feed industry allow them not to specify what is used in non organic fish feed.
So really there is no choice if you want to be organic!
I don't know if you can use any of these supplier because some of them have minimum order of at least 1 tonne, but worth to give it a try, they have offices worldwide.
I've tried all the organic feed available here and to be honest very little difference, even in price, by instance a tonnes of coomon fish food will cost £1500/1650 and organic £1800/2000

EWOS
SKRETTING
BIOMAR

PS: If you have the space and resources you can raise fish bait, meal worm, or any type of arthropod or small fish to feed to you angry trout.