Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How do you purge a fish and why? When you go fishing you eat the catch and never think about purging or such? I'm confused.

I have never bothered with trout... I guess you waste a bit of food as there's still lots of food left in the gut of the fish. I have read that tilapia have off flavors if they eat a lot of algae and purging them can remove these off flavors but that's just what I have read....

I'd say it is largely a matter of preference.

We had a get together here at the shop a few years back and had some purged fish as well as others straight from the normal fish tank and the consensus was that there was little difference. I have purged barramundi at home, they spent 4 days in a separate tank with a higher level of saltwater. I couldn't taste the difference and wouldn't go to the effort again. We have never experienced off flavours from fish an our aquaponic system.

I know that when you capture wild Carp and you want to eat them it is better to purge them of the mud they have eaten..

All I do is to place the fish in a container with fresh water in and just keep on changing the water..Eventually they will poop out all that mud.. it does help to give the fish a cleaner taste..

Juergen

Pond based fish can take up "off flavours" from algae....

Fish grown in RAS/AP systems shouldn't have the problem... and shouldn't need purging...

I eat Tilapia from my friends pea soup colored pond that live mostly on algae and they taste great. I also eat Tilapia from the Big C supermarket here in Thailand and can't tell the difference. Purging mud from fish or shell fish is a different thing as it does make a difference in taste. I don't know about fish except for Tilapia since that is the only kind of fish that I have ever raised and eaten. I know catfish from America caught in the mud flats can taste rather muddy but farm raised are great. I think different fish are affected differently by algae and mud.

True...

I always purge my yabbies in an quarantine tank of 20ppt