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Posted: 6/25/2010 4:02:34 PM EDT
Well here goes one of my crazy experiments, I am always trying to figure out how to be more self reliant while I am trapped in city limits, so I got to thinking. About what meat could be easily contained and raised with out alot of room or attention being called to it, and it hit me catfish. I googled it and sure enough people do raise catfish in 55 gallon drums. I have currently set up a 55 gallon aquarium I have and I'm going to try to start with about 20 fingerling sized cats in it in the next weekor so in my back room. I'm sure you all have thought about this already but if not what info I found says 40 cats to a barrel with an air pump and in 9 months time they are 1 to 2 lbs. Anyway I will post some pictures when I get further along if anyone is interested.
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tag, but its still easier to just go catch them Easy as shooting fish in a barrel? And please post regular updates. |
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If I remeber correctly catfish grow to the size the size of there enviroment.
What are you planing on feeding them? We used to use dog food and corn at my grandfathers farm. What breed are you going to raise as some do better in different enviroments. |
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I'm sure you all have thought about this already but if not what info I found says 40 cats to a barrel with an air pump and in 9 months time they are 1 to 2 lbs. Anyway I will post some pictures when I get further along if anyone is interested. I am really interested in seeing this work. You should make it a solar-powered pump, just to up the ante. |
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OK, now this is a cool idea. I would consider trying that if I hadn't just made an offer on a place w/ 16 acres and a stocked pond. <happy dancing>
Please post pics. I have friends who I will definitely recommend looking into it. Good luck! sgt_seti |
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I would bet they grow bigger and quicker if you use less fish.
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you can grow tilapia in a sewage ditch fwiw... pretty low maintenance
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I tried that once...............kind of
Be sure and keep the air to them. A buddy was stocking a pond so I brought home some and put them in a water tank beside the house. I thought the kids would have fun watching them grow. When the air in the tank was depleted they were jumping out of the water into the yard. By the time I figured out I needed to get air to them they were all dead. End of experiment |
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http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kofzqolUMu1qzma4ho1_500.jpg Tagged. I wonder if there's any way to make them survive the Phoenix heat. Maybe buried with shade over the barrel? Would tap water kill them? That would be a lot of purified water. Tap water wouldn't work without adding certain things to neutralize chlorine and other chemicals. Been a while since I've messed with aquariums. You can purchase this stuff in 3-5 gallon jugs. Don't remember what I used something with slime in the title. Two teaspoons would treat like forty gallons. Wouldn't hurt to have this on hand and some pH strips. Since this is a SHTF idea maybe some research in adjusting pH with common found things may be needed. Peat moss is one thing that comes to mind. Cann't remember if it changes pH or just darkens the water. |
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Tag sir, very interested to see some pics and watch this experiment along the way.
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I will put updates up on monday with links to pictures. As far a cholorinated water goes, it will kill your fish. For my none shtf situation I am using standard decholorinater you can get from pretty much any grocery store pet isle or pet store. In a shtf situation I think you will already have this set up and not be wasting precious drinking water on messing around with trying to raise fish or you will have access to somewhere that has fish and if thats the case there is your water. The only update I have for today is I have my tank sat up in the house and a transportation bucket for moving the fish. I will post some pictures monday as I am hoping to get ahold of the hatchery and purchase some fingerlings then. I believe what you should worry about in case of power loss is your air pump going down and your fish suffocating, I have one of two ideas for this you can either run a 12v airpump and use a battery and solar panel or you can hook up a reserve air tank with an electric valve and hook up a relay so that when power is lost it will slowly bleed air off from the tank but you would have to use a clean tank that doesn't have any contaminates in it. Anyway I will update everyone monday have a good weekend.
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Just my 2 cents worth.I'm sure that you will figure out how to raise them, but the real question is do you want to eat them.It's a proven fact that commercial farmed raised fish or seafood even on a bigger scale is not healthy to eat. The reason is simple, your messing with the natural cycle of life. Point being is that you are trying to raise catfish in a barrel that naturally grow in a river Where the water flows to wash away the poop that they generarte.You on the other hand will have
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Not a bad experiment.
I think if it was me I would find a way to keep the water they live in cleaner. Maybe some kind of filtration system and an ongoing water change out program (maybe using rainwater?). |
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There's some great books on small scale aquaculture. I've seen some good systems that work.
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I think if it was me I would find a way to keep the water they live in cleaner. Maybe some kind of filtration system and an ongoing water change out program (maybe using rainwater?). Barrel-ponics C |
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Not a bad experiment. I think if it was me I would find a way to keep the water they live in cleaner. Maybe some kind of filtration system and an ongoing water change out program (maybe using rainwater?). He's going to have to do daily water changes just to keep the ammonia down with that many fish in such a small space. Without a filtration system they will be swiming in shit after a week. Still trying to figure out how that many fish are going to be able to grow out in such a small space. |
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Not a bad experiment. I think if it was me I would find a way to keep the water they live in cleaner. Maybe some kind of filtration system and an ongoing water change out program (maybe using rainwater?). He's going to have to do daily water changes just to keep the ammonia down with that many fish in such a small space. Without a filtration system they will be swiming in shit after a week. Still trying to figure out how that many fish are going to be able to grow out in such a small space. Most of the small scale barrel type aquaculture projects seem to incorporate some form of hydroponic vegetation to remove the fish waste products and aerate the water. After having had some chance to think about it some, I suspect your comments are on target, at least for something that is going to create a usable amount of food. I still think it's not a bad experiment to make. |
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I would suggest two filter systems one on the bottom buried in round pea sized gravel and another on top filtering a large volume of the water. These fish will shit 10 times more than some guppy tank. Also may want to consider tripling the tank size. My sisters husband is a custom salt water fish tank builder/installer. Some plexiglas, glue etc and some research and you could come up with something much much more efficient than a cramped 55 gallon tank or barrel. Theres no way you could keep 40 catfish in a 55 gallon tank. I would suggest 300 or as much as you can do. But it is a good idea. Would like to follow this. I had some largemouths in a tank as a kid and they grew big, fast and needed a TON of maintenance. 3 fingerling sized bass became 12" long aggressive feeding machines in months.
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Most of the small scale barrel type aquaculture projects seem to incorporate some form of hydroponic vegetation to remove the fish waste products and aerate the water. After having had some chance to think about it some, I suspect your comments are on target, at least for something that is going to create a usable amount of food. I still think it's not a bad experiment to make. Yes, run the fish water out through the plant bed. The plants will filter it, remove the nutrients (ammonia) and the water returns to the fish. |
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Most of the small scale barrel type aquaculture projects seem to incorporate some form of hydroponic vegetation to remove the fish waste products and aerate the water. After having had some chance to think about it some, I suspect your comments are on target, at least for something that is going to create a usable amount of food. I still think it's not a bad experiment to make. Yes, run the fish water out through the plant bed. The plants will filter it, remove the nutrients (ammonia) and the water returns to the fish. I've heard this referred to as aquaponics. A friend of mine is a missionary who travels all over the world. One of the things she does is to help build aquaponic systems. Ahava Foundation. She has a how-to guide, but it's not readily available yet. A single barrel system is smaller than most of the stuff she builds. So, I'm looking forward to see how this experiment works out. sgt_seti |
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Low buck, low tech is the way to go.
Maggot racks over a net pen in a pond,etc Think third world. I've seen a lowbuck tilapia set up, using a 1,000 gallon tank, constructed of polyester resin coated plywood. Grew crawfish in the effluent, and hydroponic tomatos beyond that, before going thru a solid separator, then bead and sand filters. This type, and even more complex systems are at the mercy of electricity,and supplemental O2 is often required. (You Can take and O2 cylinder and wire in a normal closed solenoid to an O2 diffuser/stone. That way, if the power fails, and you lose cuirculation, solenoid will open the valve and fish will at least get O2 until you can straighten things out) I've run a 7,000 gallon tank with some high tech systems on it, (think UV lights, O3 generation,etc) and still had water quality and fish health issues at times. VT used to have a very impressive, low buck tilapia system, in a greenhouse. But damn if I'd want to eat ANYTHING that lived in water that looked and smelled like that. |
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I will put updates up on monday with links to pictures. As far a cholorinated water goes, it will kill your fish. For my none shtf situation I am using standard decholorinater you can get from pretty much any grocery store pet isle or pet store. In a shtf situation I think you will already have this set up and not be wasting precious drinking water on messing around with trying to raise fish or you will have access to somewhere that has fish and if thats the case there is your water. The only update I have for today is I have my tank sat up in the house and a transportation bucket for moving the fish. I will post some pictures monday as I am hoping to get ahold of the hatchery and purchase some fingerlings then. I believe what you should worry about in case of power loss is your air pump going down and your fish suffocating, I have one of two ideas for this you can either run a 12v airpump and use a battery and solar panel or you can hook up a reserve air tank with an electric valve and hook up a relay so that when power is lost it will slowly bleed air off from the tank but you would have to use a clean tank that doesn't have any contaminates in it. Anyway I will update everyone monday have a good weekend. Or, you can just set up the barrel ahead of time and let the water sit in it for a few days. The chlorine will naturally dissipate pretty quickly. But while you're at it, it might be a good time to think of a rainwater collection system? Using 'harvested' water to replenish your fish farm seems like it would be pretty practical. |
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Notes to consider from above post.
Chlorine will dissapate Chloramine will not. You will need a ground water source or a neutrolizing chemical. Higher the temp the lower the O2 concentation. Surfave movement = oxygen exchange. surface area is better then Depth, wider longer verser higher narrower. food in has to be food out somehow, you will need to remove solids or Flush them out, If you use roof rain water run off into containment bin. (use the gutter water) it Can cause issues with temp fluctations that can cause disease so be careful with that method. Heat keep that thing in the shade, Green water is OK brown is usually bad Think polyculture thats cats, tilapa (or whatever) crayfish, all in same resivore. I have been in the aquaculture/aquarium industry for 25 + years Mostly higher tech stuff but i can help out with the system if ya want. Low tech works, but its usually low density, or high maintence with higher density. If you look at a natural pond there is a Very small amount of Biomass (fish etc) per gallon of water. |
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I will put updates up on monday with links to pictures. As far a cholorinated water goes, it will kill your fish. For my none shtf situation I am using standard decholorinater you can get from pretty much any grocery store pet isle or pet store. In a shtf situation I think you will already have this set up and not be wasting precious drinking water on messing around with trying to raise fish or you will have access to somewhere that has fish and if thats the case there is your water. The only update I have for today is I have my tank sat up in the house and a transportation bucket for moving the fish. I will post some pictures monday as I am hoping to get ahold of the hatchery and purchase some fingerlings then. I believe what you should worry about in case of power loss is your air pump going down and your fish suffocating, I have one of two ideas for this you can either run a 12v airpump and use a battery and solar panel or you can hook up a reserve air tank with an electric valve and hook up a relay so that when power is lost it will slowly bleed air off from the tank but you would have to use a clean tank that doesn't have any contaminates in it. Anyway I will update everyone monday have a good weekend. Or, you can just set up the barrel ahead of time and let the water sit in it for a few days. The chlorine will naturally dissipate pretty quickly. But while you're at it, it might be a good time to think of a rainwater collection system? Using 'harvested' water to replenish your fish farm seems like it would be pretty practical. I thought that some locales chemically bond the chlorine to the water so that it does not evaporate through the supply system. |
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I will put updates up on monday with links to pictures. As far a cholorinated water goes, it will kill your fish. For my none shtf situation I am using standard decholorinater you can get from pretty much any grocery store pet isle or pet store. In a shtf situation I think you will already have this set up and not be wasting precious drinking water on messing around with trying to raise fish or you will have access to somewhere that has fish and if thats the case there is your water. The only update I have for today is I have my tank sat up in the house and a transportation bucket for moving the fish. I will post some pictures monday as I am hoping to get ahold of the hatchery and purchase some fingerlings then. I believe what you should worry about in case of power loss is your air pump going down and your fish suffocating, I have one of two ideas for this you can either run a 12v airpump and use a battery and solar panel or you can hook up a reserve air tank with an electric valve and hook up a relay so that when power is lost it will slowly bleed air off from the tank but you would have to use a clean tank that doesn't have any contaminates in it. Anyway I will update everyone monday have a good weekend. Or, you can just set up the barrel ahead of time and let the water sit in it for a few days. The chlorine will naturally dissipate pretty quickly. But while you're at it, it might be a good time to think of a rainwater collection system? Using 'harvested' water to replenish your fish farm seems like it would be pretty practical. I thought that some locales chemically bond the chlorine to the water so that it does not evaporate through the supply system. That may be the chloromine leoismydog mentions... I dunno, not a water quality specialist by any stretch of the imagination. Just relating my experiences with regular old chlorine after (past) raising several species of very chemical-sensitive tropical frogs and (present) trying to keep a swimming pool chlorined up enough to kill the little buggies. leoismydog sounds like the voice of authority for this thread... |
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Pretty sure the website will get you on more watch lists than arfcom, but there's a good write up on catfish in a barrel HERE
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I'm ignorant when it comes to fish, here's my question: What are their light requirements? Do they only need light because their food requires light? I seem to remember that cats find their food by smell rather than sight.
I ask because I was thinking it could be interesting to raise the cats in an underground cistern, with the plant side of the operation being directly above the cistern, more or less at ground level. I'm thinking that might work better in areas that have frigid winters or intense summers since you'd have the earth as a temperature regulator. Something along the lines of this: Link It has an access hatch where you could dump dog food or run lines. That's just the product I found with the first google result, I'm sure a more in-depth look could find all manner of tanks. |
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Here's a brief article on using a swimming pool to grow talipia as a part of an agricultural cycle....
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I'm excited to see some pictures, and I would be interested in seeing some of the builds people in the fish industry have set up/used.
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Interesting article. Unfortunately over the years I still have not managed to acquire a taste for catfish. Sunfish might be good though, I wonder how they would compare production wise? As several people mentioned water quality would be an issue. You have to do something with the fish waste that would be converted to nitrite compounds. Normally an over abundance of fish waste would lead to an algae bloom. Unfortunately this would lead to a reduction in oxygen which is obviously bad for the fish. So what if we made a 3 barrel fish "pond"? Two barrels for fish and one to act as a filter. It would require a bit of plumbing, but I think you would end up with better water and fish. Maybe stock it with sand as a medium, force the water from the fish barrel through the sand filter then let it run back into the fish tanks? If you stocked the filter barrel with a fast growing aquatic weed like hydrilla it would help soak up some of the fish by products. As an aside, refuse water from fish tanks tends to make a great fertilizer for terrestrial plants. |
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Not a new idea apparently. I found this at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Home-Aquaculture-Guide-Backyard-Farming/dp/0878574727 Interesting info here too: http://www.redbayfarm.com/Voting.html |
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http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kofzqolUMu1qzma4ho1_500.jpg Tagged. I wonder if there's any way to make them survive the Phoenix heat. Maybe buried with shade over the barrel? Would tap water kill them? That would be a lot of purified water. Tap water wouldn't work without adding certain things to neutralize chlorine and other chemicals. Been a while since I've messed with aquariums. You can purchase this stuff in 3-5 gallon jugs. Don't remember what I used something with slime in the title. Two teaspoons would treat like forty gallons. Wouldn't hurt to have this on hand and some pH strips. Since this is a SHTF idea maybe some research in adjusting pH with common found things may be needed. Peat moss is one thing that comes to mind. Cann't remember if it changes pH or just darkens the water. Aquarium? Good luck. Maintenance will eat you alive. My 55 gallon tank is taxed by 2-3 cichlids. Pond is the way to go. Won't be a problem when you are dealing with a 30x50 foot pond and use lots of natural plants to act as the biological filter. Fill the pond, let it sit for about 2 weeks as chemicals evaporate off. Then start adding some plants and the fish. The water you add to account for evaporation will be a drop in the bucket percentage wise to the total amount of water in the pond. Bigger problems with the pond will be dealing with sediment along with moss which will grow to cover the entire surface of the pond unless you shade/cover the water. We had a piece of property with 5 ponds, some of which were around 30x50 feet and about 3-4 feet deep. If they were exposed to sun then they had moss like crazy which almost needed weekly cleaning off to keep it under control. We did have a single cat fish in one of the ponds, it was about 15x25 feet. That catfish grew to around 8-10 inches in length. It didn't get much larger than that due to limited food. Pretty sure it was eating the minnows and the bullfrog tad-poles. If you want a fish that does well in a pond, get blue gil. At our house we had a 8x20x3 pond that we were dumb enough to put 4-5 blue gil into. In a matter of 4-5 years the surface water of the pond would ignite every time we tried to feed the coy that were also in the pond. We used to be able to fish for blue gil in our pond with nothing more than a lure. We wound up draining the pond to get the bluegil numbers down and we lost count. Had dozens of palm sized blue gil., a couple of bigger than hand sized blue gill, and HUNDREDS of little quarter to silver dollar sized blue gil. |
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Interesting article. Unfortunately over the years I still have not managed to acquire a taste for catfish. Sunfish might be good though, I wonder how they would compare production wise? As several people mentioned water quality would be an issue. You have to do something with the fish waste that would be converted to nitrite compounds. Normally an over abundance of fish waste would lead to an algae bloom. Unfortunately this would lead to a reduction in oxygen which is obviously bad for the fish. So what if we made a 3 barrel fish "pond"? Two barrels for fish and one to act as a filter. It would require a bit of plumbing, but I think you would end up with better water and fish. Maybe stock it with sand as a medium, force the water from the fish barrel through the sand filter then let it run back into the fish tanks? If you stocked the filter barrel with a fast growing aquatic weed like hydrilla it would help soak up some of the fish by products. As an aside, refuse water from fish tanks tends to make a great fertilizer for terrestrial plants. Ive seen commercial setups like this on TV, only they have two main pools. One holds sea bass that they are raising and the solid waste get pumped into a pool filled with tilapia that eat the waste. I dont know what they do with the tilapia waste though. Dirty Jobs Fish Farm |
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G-30,
Nice post. Glad to see I'm not the only one who has plumbing haunting my dreams! I draw directional arrows and labels on EVERYTHING for when things go bad! And I plumb all essentials in with couplings, so I can swap them out in a hurry, when needed! |
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It will be a lot more work than you are thinking, you have to remove the solids from the water and then strip out the ammonia. You could set up one filtration system for multiple tanks but if one fish in one barrel gets sick they all will. Here are some pictures of my pond set up, I raise koi for fun and my largest is about 36". In a closed environment things can get toxic in a hurry, the smaller the body of water the more unstable it will be. You will need really good filtration for high stocking levels like you are talking. 3800gal heated koi pond 270 gallon settling chamber(solids removal) 100 gallon moving bed filter(ammonia removal) http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/IM004277.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/IM003540.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/IM003843.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/001-20.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/002-19.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/003-18.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/004-17.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/099.jpg Awsome dam thats a big ass koi fish |
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It will be a lot more work than you are thinking, you have to remove the solids from the water and then strip out the ammonia. You could set up one filtration system for multiple tanks but if one fish in one barrel gets sick they all will. Here are some pictures of my pond set up, I raise koi for fun and my largest is about 36". In a closed environment things can get toxic in a hurry, the smaller the body of water the more unstable it will be. You will need really good filtration for high stocking levels like you are talking. 3800gal heated koi pond 270 gallon settling chamber(solids removal) 100 gallon moving bed filter(ammonia removal) http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/IM004277.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/IM003540.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/IM003843.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/001-20.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/002-19.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/003-18.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/Koi/004-17.jpg http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/G-30/099.jpg Awsome dam thats a big ass koi fish The one on the left was about 3 years old in that picture, I was getting about 11" per year of growth. This is what they looked like when I got them. |
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nice koi sir
built my mom a koi pond 20'x10'x6' deep our winters are mild enough the depth is so a heater is not needed your plumbing....gives me nightmares when i finished the plumbing on her's I dreamed about plumbing for a full week after not to derail the thread but she, for whatever reason only raises butterfly koi and only gin rin personally I like the big fat 36' koi like you have EDIT: to add to the thread catfish are some serious waste makers in a pond with a liner or a plastic barrel your taking out the majority of natural filtration and your margin for error decreases and your need for temperature regulation increases even in a 3 barrel setup things could go bad in a hurry once a reaction is set off say one fish died in the morning it could start to cause problems within a few hours and kill off your entire stock before you got home from work. |
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