Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all

I have ready access to lots of fish heads and bones (live in a small community of fishers - saltwater fish), as well as, prawn heads and shells. Just wondering if this would work as fishfeed if I could blend it up fine enough.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks

gav:)

I would think that would work great for more carnivorous fish. Grind into paste, blend with a little flour, veggie and binder....yum! Prolly should do that when the wife isn't home.

Thanks Janet:)

I will hopefully stock sleepy cod, which are carnivores. Do you think that adding a few vegies would hurt them?

gav

PS: I think I might have to setup an outdoor area for this experiment

Everyone should eat their veggies.

I'm not an expert on Australian fish, but even the highest protein foods of the line that I use have wheat and soybeans pretty high in the ingredient list. And I think I would rather feed my fish a few bits of veggie rather than hydrolyzed feather meal. I've heard it argued that carnivorous animals get their vegetables from the gut of the animals they consume, so I think adding some shredded zucchini or whatever you have growing in the garden would be great.

http://www.zeiglerfeed.com/product_lite ... atinum.pdf

Thanks Janet:)

Maybe I can incorporate some of Gary's duckweed ideas into the fish/prawn mix, as well as, a few vegies.

gav, you just reminded me of the other ingredients i used when i home made fish food!

there was a bag of prawn heads in there too!

a sausage mincer makes light work of all shells and bones. just pass the mix thru a few times I agree with the adding of veggies

recently read an article where they claimed aquaculture was a huge user of ocean fish resources as food for aquaculture fish (12kg of ocean fish to get 1kg of aquaculture fish) and as a result aquaculture was bad for the environment.

so from that we can say that using the waste from the fishing operations in the manner you are planning on doing is good for your fish and good for the environment as you are using a waste product and they make commercial fish food out of the same stuff anyway.

Yep ground up fish and prawn waste is great food. blended prawn waste make a good base for a colour food for ornamental fish. Ground fish, bones and all would be healthy for fish. Fish may not be able to digest all the ground bone but I imagine it will make great debris for plants to grow in.
A lot of the time cerials/grains/flour is used to bind fishfood together. Soya bean is being used a lot too.

12kg of ocean fish should produce something like 8kg of aquaculture fish since the feed/weight ratio is in the 1-2 range.

2nd law of thermodynamics strikes again. Good thing we have the big bright thing in the sky that keeps giving us energy

I luv that big bright thing.
Thats kinda why I like algae... it's like a ready made battery of energy you can use.

After the West Oz BYAP GTG, I collected the meal wastes (bones, skin, heads) and the kitchen scraps from making salads & a couple of potatoes and headed for my shed where I have a meat bandsaw, complete with a mincer.
I minced it up and made a heap of fish food.

The Tilapia are eating it rapidly.
Nothing left after an hour - not bad for shy fish.

I have taken most and frozen it in ice cube trays which can be added to the aquarium one at a time, as needed.

Waste not, want not

great idea Tony

Out of interest...would the fish heads and bones have to be cooked or could they just be minced up, frozen and used when needed.

Thanks

gav

PS: I'll look at a sausage mincer...thanks Steve

i bought one of ebay cheap esp. for the purpose!

you could prolly use them raw as thats the way fish would eat them! just thought i might extend storage life a bit by cooking and killing of some bacs in the process. as it turned out i didn't dry it quick enough and some if it got quite mouldy..............i guess thats the neg of not using any preservs.