Hi, I'm interested in raising goldfish for less than $1/lb, and so obviously purchasing fish food is not an option. Do you think that a diet consisting of BSFL, duckweed, red composting worms, and peas is a healthy mix? I've been reading about how someone feeds his BSFL with horse meal ($8 for 50 lb bag) as well as food scraps, then uses the larvae effluent to grow duckweed, and uses the larvae castings to feed the red worms. I could grow the peas in regular old dirt (fertilized of course with the castings).
Thanks for your opinions on this.
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Well, forget Skretting if you're just looking for cheap. Shipping for 40 lbs is about $60 to my place.
George said:
Skretting.us has a downloadable brochure about their company and sources.
Thank-you all for your input so far. I've already contacted my local feed store and they are a Purina distributor so they can get that feed. For the moment, I'm just using aquarium goldfish flakes, because I just set up my AP system and the fish are pretty tiny. To clarify, my goal is to spend less than $1 to produce 1 lb of goldfish. That means the feed should cost a good fraction less than $1/lb, since the conversion of food to goldfish flesh is less than 1. The reason for this goal is that I help to rehab wild seabirds, and currently we buy smelt that is $1/lb, and I'd like to set up an AP system that can compete with that. So, I'm first building a small demo system, but then if I can demonstrate it can be done, then I'll expand it.
I'll definitely check out those low-cost commercial feeds that have been suggested, but really I'd like to make my own food, and am trying to determine a healthy mix. I also live near the sea, so have easy access to seaweed (giant kelp, etc). So, I thought the following mix would be healthy: peas, seaweed, duckweed, BSFL, and red compost worms. Maybe also some spinach leaves, grown in the AP system itself.
Thanks again for your help so far!
I say go for it Eric. Try out your homemade formula and let us know.
Cheers
Hi Eric,
I'm new to aquaponics, but I've been doing some digging on fish feed, I stumbled on this article http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa097 . They do a good job of breaking all the ingredients down, and even have a few recipes, It looks like a lot of work, but if I had to pick a recipe to start with, the last one in the publication (gelitin based) looks like it the easiest to put together, not saying I'm going to do it, but its a informative article on fish feed, worth checking out.
Garrett
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