Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been busy moving my system from my basement to my garage. I have also been working on expanding it. I found a couple Ibc totes(food grade). Up until now i have always built my tanks and then lined them. Working with the ibc tanks has been a new experience for me. I have learned lots from watching members of this forum. I am more about raising fish then the plants. (so any advise would help out). I have raised Catfish many times in my life as pets. A couple of years ago I stumbled across Aquaponics looking at raising catfish to eat. I was hooked and still am. I am not the best at documenting everything. But here are some pics of the work in progress. I hope everyone enjoys them as much as i do.

The large Channel catfish are a year old this month. There are 50 channel catfish in the Ibc tote. the large tank has 7 Channel and 3 large gold fish in it.(plus some feeder gold fish for food) The drums are a RFF and Boi filter

more pics!!

Just a little update, I have moved the raft bed diangle over the lower fish tank. This allows me to watch the fish and make sure they are eating. I also have better access to the pump. Here is a pic of some of my starts. Leaf Lettuce and baby spinach plus some duckweed it the white container.

Those 1 year channel cats should be really good eating.

I am not sure if i am eating or going to try to spawn them. I am not even sure if i know enough to raise the fry or get them to spawn. . Was still doing research on the subjects. I would like to have more of a self reliance of producing my own fish rather than be dependent on a hatchery. I have been thinking about buying some blue tilapia. I am a little concerned with the heat required during the winter months. Would like to do more native fish. I like the channel cats are plate size in around a year old. with that in mind i would like a fish with a shorter grow out time. I would rather stay with native fish. Any ideals?

Your tank does not look big enough to spawn catfish.

search SRAC web site there is a lot of articles on spawning and raising channel catfish.. They usually have to be 3years old, which means BIG fish. I would not try spawning channel cats in less than 1k gallon tank and that is still gonna be small. They spawn in caverns or caves. You will need to make something out of probably a blue barrel to sink in the tank that a male can use as a nest.

it doesnt look particularly difficult and i know someone on this forum that has successful catfish spawns but they are/were in a 5k gallon tank.


The good news is the fry are probably big enough to start taking crushed commercial feed right away so that could make feeding/raising the fry easy.

If you do try, keep us updated.

Thank you for the great information.

I am not sure if i want to keep them that long. (thought it was 3 years min.)

I was thinking about a pool to spawn them in. but not sure about the space.

Lots of good info. Thank you again.

Not sure what I am going to do, I guess time will tell.

Channel Catfish Broodfish Management fact sheet
https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/152/