Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

If anyone is interested I have a 126pg Adobe PDF from the Dept of fisheries Reserch division on feeding Lupins to fish,makes for interesting read if you have the time.
Only problem is I don`t know how to get it to you other than your e-mail address(we`ll work something out)

Lupins Nutritional Info http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/op/op031/fop031.pdf

What are other names for lupins? What is it? We must have it by another name here.

I was just at the farm store. They had millet at 69 cents per pound, and whole corn at 4 pounds for a dollar for feeding to the wild birds. I bought a little of each to try out once I actually have the tilapia.

# lupine: any plant of the genus Lupinus; bearing erect spikes of usually purplish-blue flowers
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

# Lupin, often spelled lupine in the US, is the common name for members of the genus Lupinus in the family Fabaceae. Like most members of this family, Lupins can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere into ammonia, fertilizing the soil for other plants.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupin

OK, I did some searching with 'lupin' as a legume. It is a close cousin to our perennial Maine Lupine. There are annual lupins, too. Those seem to be the ones grown for seed crops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupinus_luteus

Seems that for Tilapia, or any other omnivorous fish, an ideal method of feeding them would be to set up a sprouting system within your system. you could dump in a variety of seeds to sprout, especially beans and grains, then about 3-5 days later, move those to the tank. sprouting is supposed to improve the nutrition of the seed, and also multiplies the volume and/or weight of the feed. In other words, for Tilapia (a very efficient fish), 1lb feed = .8-.9 lb fish = .6-.7lb meat so with the multiplying effect of sprouting, 1lb sprouting seed mixture = 3lbs feed = 2.5lbs fish = 2 lbs meat. Not a bad conversion rate! (might not be that high, but you get the idea...)

Hey anyone have any ideas on Sprouting rice. As i am on an island of rice it maybe a great way for me to reduce cost here.

I would try to sprout rice the same as any other sprout. Place the seeds in either a loosely woven cloth bag or a jar with a perforated or screen lid. Soak the seed over night in room-temperature water. Drain them in the morning. Then every morning and every evening, wet down the seed again and drain them. Keep at room temperature and out of direct sunlight until desired size is attained. Refrigerate if needed to slow them down. Realize that sprouting the seeds causes total volume to expand quite a bit, so start small until you get an idea of how big a batch to do at one time.

jtjf, also be sure that you get whole grain rice. I believe that the 'white' rice here has been polished--the outer skin has been abraded away. I'm not sure that will germinate just because the seed has been damaged.

Thanks Janet and no worries on polished rice i can buy rice seed here right from the supplier. Like i said i live on a rice island. Every where you go there are rice paddies. I just thought hey seed must be cheap wonder if it will work.

Sprouted grain.......and its cousin hydoponic fodder (like wheatgrass) is excellent food for livestock of most types.

You should be aware, however, that grains of all types carry mould spores which are activated when the grain becomes wet.

I don't know what the effect of mouldy grain is on fish, but it will kill poultry and other livestock.

Is anyone growing their food for the use of their fish in an AP system, or using byprooducts of an ongoing food related business (bakery, etc)?

I am drawn to AP, but we grow most of our food, and all of our chook food either comes from our land, or sourced in this watershed. Our farm is designed along permacultural principles, with multiple species to meet the same needs, and multiple needs met by each species. AP is a closed loop that requires input to create the fish and veggies. I have no idea what fish pellets would cost here, but I suspect they would be quite high, and might make the AP system a bit of a fiscal drain.

We know birds. We have over 150 chooks, turkeys and ducks that free range over 12 acres of cultivated land. (Edited to add: they collect much of their food that way, too, foraging for insects, greens and seed) I feed them breadnut, partially defatted coconut (from making coconut milk or oil), our neighbors weevily corn, etc.

Breadnut is %5 fat and %11 protein, which the birds love (so do we!). Would that be suitable for fish feed?

We also are looking at local fish species as tilapia is considered a dangerous invasive (they are in all of th major watersheds up north in Belize already), so would probably make a mixture of machaca (a cyclid), dermalong, bay snook and tuba, all local feshwater species.

My question is, does anyone raise their own fish feed? If so, what?

C

Folks are raising earthworms. I'm thinking about sprouting seeds and letting them eat from the dirt garden--floating trimmings and leaves. Not sure what everyone is doing, but even kitchen scraps or garden trimmings could feed them.

Christopher - there has been a fair bit of talk about it, but I don't think anyone has actually made their own pellets yet. I personally think that worms and things like that are only ever going to be a supplementary feed - imagine growing enough worms to feed a couple of hundren (or more) big fish daily.

The key in my view (for convenience if nothing else) is to make a pellet from home grown vegetable (and possibly animal) products (grains, leaf crops, some eggs???). Sprouting the grains befor making into the food is said to increase the protein content.

One reason why omnivorous fish are attractive (jade and silver perch are omnivores) is that they will readilly eat plant matter. Mine do not eat all leaf matter - but will feed on many plants almost imediatelly upon throwing into the tank. I have only done some basic experimentation to date which unfortunatelly has shown that they are not keen on some of the plants that I was favouring as a good source of protein - such as leaf amaranth. Duckweed is another plant that is widely spoken of and has been used by many of us mainly as a supplementary feed, because growing sufficient quantities takes up quite a lot of room (in your situation you could grow duckweed and the like in a dam or pond, therefore much more cheaply that us who would need to use containers.

Early on Joel posted some recipes (or links to recipes) for homemade pellets using grain, but I'm not sure where they are. I'm sure with some experimentation, producing a pellet that your fish will eat that is made up of stuff grown onsite will be possible. One strategy I think will be to use the feed from when they are babies, so they get used to it. It is a shame we cannot free range our fish and let them fend for themselves. Other than attracting some insects to the pond (which again can only be supplemental feed) and growing some duckweed in the pond (which is likely to all get eaten anyway and can also cause problems with clogging and stuff if being grown in your AP system) there is little that can be done in this respect. Let us know how you go.

Thanks janet and VB. Sounds like some work needs to be done... or a challenge has been thrown down, VB! I will see what I can do..... and, of course, report on it.

If we free ranged our fish, they would go somewhere else.... big shame!

Would feeding chicken guts to fish work? Prolly depends on the fish, right?