Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm wondering, what fish types breed well in tanks (without having to setup seperate breeding tanks or whatever). I know that tilapia breed very easily. But are there other fish that would be just as easy (or nearly so?)

Any breeding habits would be good even if they don't match my criteria (maybe they'll match someone elses). Ultimately i'm looking for a good breeder that can withstand lower temps, but I also just like to learn about what fish are breedable and what might be involved in aquaponics (in the 300 gallon system i'm making).

Not eatable but minnows are everywhere in my system currently.

Presumably you mean edible species that will simply breed on their own, with no intervention by you (as setting up a hatchery will cost you $1000's).

In that case, hardly any. Tilapia would be the only species of any worthwhile size, and even they need to be managed to prevent crowding/stunting.

Man, that really makes tilapia so much of a better solution . Which is bad because their temperatures make them difficult.

What about bluegill? I'm ok with having to do special things (like when I kill them, only kill all but 5 or 10 of them, etc. Or anything like that. I'm just looking for what options there are as far as breeding goes.

Carp

go on

I didn't think Carp was a good eating fish.

hmm, from the looks of it though it might fit what i'm personally looking for.

Quote from wikipedia:

Although they are very tolerant of most conditions, common carp prefer large bodies of slow or standing water and soft, vegetative sediments. A schooling fish, they prefer to be in groups of 5 or more. They naturally live in a temperate climate in fresh or slightly brackish water with a pH of 6.5–9.0 and salinity up to about 5‰,[14] and temperatures of 3 to 35 °C.[2] The ideal temperature is 23 to 30 °C, with spawning beginning at 17–18 °C; they will readily survive winter in a frozen over pond, as long as some free water remains below the ice.[14] Carp are able to tolerate water with very low oxygen levels, by gulping air at the surface.[3]

Basically catfish, except they breed easy. I wonder how they are for eating, hmmm.

Some are arbe...you just have to get the whole notion of eating carp into a different light...most ppl say "oh carp...thats crap" but have never actually tasted them
I've never tried myself ( want to) but seen alot of good recipies with carp in them

Apparently, Fisheries put out a book a cookbook even to encourage people to eat crap... sorry, Carp.
Supposed to be OK if there living in clean water as in the wild they eat from the bottom.

skinned and smoked as they are supposed to have fatty ordinary textured skin

I thank Google for this as i have never tried to eat fluffy the koi.

man, the more i look them up the more i like them . I think i might just have found my fish. Now if only i can find some fingerlings, hmmm.

People have been eating them in Europe and Asia for thousands of years, you just have to pick the right species. In Germany they supposedly have a scaleless version of their common carp... no scaling... that's gotta be a bonus!

Ok, so maybe this thread should be retitled "What is the best kind of carp?" . I'm still up for hearing about other breeding methods, but it really seems like the carp could work.

Questions - is breeding as easy as tilapia (just leave them in and you just have to worry about having too many)? Or is there more to it than that? Is 300 gallons enough to raise them? Can I fit 50-100 in there? I'm thinking of combining 2 300 gallon tanks one as a fingerling tank and the other for the adults. What breed is the best? I need freezing temperatures (2 degrees F is what my outside gets like sometimes, sometimes -15 degrees F). I can keep the water from freezing but that's about it. I'd also like a fish that will be big enough to fillet (although minnows would be nice if i was raising something else too).

I thought part of the problem with eating Carp was that they were very boney and the bones even forked making it very hard to get a fillet without it being full of bones.

Yep, but they still consititute the most cultured species in the world, for eating purposes. The mad Iraqui's in my study group love 'em ! But the bones put me off, however, they just ball 'em up into one side of their mouth and then spit them out when the ball gets to big.