Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Corny, yep, the Barra were very happy on their diet of pellets and I had them mixed in with perch without any problems...

Infact, I'm yet to find any fish that haven't mixed well together when in the same tank, black bream, silver perch, Barra, murray cod, they have all got on well together when there isn't tooo much size difference.. Oh goldfish didn't do well when mixed in with the other fish...

lol go figure the goldfish

Joel,

thought i'd reply in the appropriate section as i could see us talking away in the the wrong place.

Yep, i like the lupin meal as a feed stock component, but at the moment i have 22 frozen silver perch and a couple of doz prawn heads in the freezer that i feel like putting to use it may be the first and last time depending on the stench

I DID find some info on a site last night that says that it has long been known that raw fish is NOT ideal; quoted from document;

"Utilizing raw fish as a main ingredient in fish feeds has long been recognized to be harmful to
the health and growth of fish due primarily to the presence of the anti-nutrient, thiaminase.
Thiaminase, an enzyme that destroys thiamine (vitamin B-1), one of the essential watersoluble
vitamins, is mostly found in freshwater fish and is destroyed by heat (i.e., cooking)."

So i guess i'll be cooking it even more smelly

I'll be using about 50% fish 15% veggies 35% chook pellets (they are made from grains and have added vitamins and minerals.

Will let you all know how i go

Steve

So did you give it a go Steve......?...... (Joel pictures Steve in all sorts of trouble for stinking out the house)

Do you have any idea how long that sort of feed will last? I'm just wondering whether it would last the same as the commercial pellets which last a fair while.

Will keep you posted Joel,

was going to attempt it yesterday but there were already enough arguments (remember the outcome of the romantic weekend? who would of thought the dramas........ )

Storage time is probably about three to four months in the freezer as no preservative will be added as in the commercial feeds. Apparently vitamin A can be used as an anti-oxidant (natural preservative) but is prohibitavly expensive.

Three months in the freezer is good enuf for me though.

Will post outcome as soon as i have done it. May need to relocate the computer (and myself) to the garage

Steve

I remember the weekend your talking about..... And hey garages are way underrated in my opinion...

I was bored tonight and my better half was out..........so i went ahead and stunk out the house with making my own fish food.

Below were my ingredients and method;

22 small silver perch (boiled
5 green tomatoes
18 prawn heads
10 handfulls of chicken pellets
400 grams flour
2 lemons (don't know why )

I boiled the prawn heads, tomatoes, and perch
fed them all into a sausage maker/mincer with the largest die fitted
added the chicken pellets which were enough to soak up most of the water and make a binding mix

at this point i re processed it through the mincer with the smallest die fitted, but found it too mushy, so i added the flour and kneaded it in to a dough.

extruded the dough thru the mincer onto 6 trays and left to dry with small heater blowing across it.

Haven't been able to tell if the fish are partial to it yet, as i had just fed them all before i started and they weren't interseted in any food after their feed.

To be completely honest it was ALOT of work, and i'm not sure how many times the mincer would cope with the excersise.

I'll probably just find a bulk supply of pellets, but i enjoyed the experiment

Have fun all

PS: YES, the smell WAS that bad

Steve, if the fish take to your feed....how many days worth did all that make?

You were trying to pre-season your fish by including lemon in their diet, I like it...

Let us know how well the fish take to the new feed Steve, and I hope you manage to air the house out before the better half gets home......

Too late, she came home half way through

We popped out for a few hours and now that i back the house absolutle reaks!!

Corny, not sure about how many days worth it would be. have 44 perch in 1000Lt holding tank out side and the temp of the water is near 10C so they don't really take much food. plenty of algae in there. I'll weigh the feed tomorow and then maybe joel can give you an estimation on how long that quantity would last hime

will try the food out on my tropicals and the lone silver perch inside in the heated tank. He can be my test subject, and as such can live out his natural life with out being eaten. fair trade me thinks.
I can see that my fish (including "test perch" will have to be re-trained onto sinking food, mine sinks and they are all used to floating flakes or pellets. Except the clown loaches that wait until everything sinks anyway......lazy bastards

Joel, yes, maybe i was subconsiously pre-seasoning. Damn, forgot the pepper. I think i thought that it may have helped with storage life. dunno why.

Sinking vs floating almost deserves a new topic of it's own..

How long the feed lasts depends on how much you feed and how many fish you have. Theory goes that you feed them 1-4% of their body weight daily, so how much weight did you end up with Steve? I wonder how a floating pellet can be made then, I don't suppose that yours staerted to float after they dried out a bit more did they?

Wouldn't they float if they're frozen?

Or is that a 'no no'?

Does any one have any experiance with growing / feeding trout cod,
my son would like to also have a separate section of the tank to grow some of these to release as well as either perch or barra for eating

Leigh

You've got me there Leigh..... What exactly are 'trout cod'? I've not heard of them before....

Trout Cod are a very rare species of native fish found in the murray darling system (I think) I could ask my son but the reply but his answer would probably fill a least a couple of pages