Aquaponic Gardening

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  I am looking for a type of fish that grows to about a pound in a 6 - 9 month period. Has a food conversion ratio of about 1.7 or lower. Is herbivorous or omniforous.

Matthew, in response to your previous post on the other thread  " You can grow advance channel catfish fingerlings, there are plenty of suppliers in your part of the US.  FCR should be around 1.3 once you get good."

I've thought about the catfish. I don't like the fish for 2 reasons. I'm scared of accidentally getting jabbed by those ugly barbs. And second reason I find it difficult to skin. Especially that thin white underlayered skin is hard to pull off. But you are right about it being ideal otherwise.

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With a little practice catfish are super easy to fillet.  If you do not like the barb issue, stay away from hybrid catfish.  The cross between blues and channels does wonders except it produces a fish with insanely sharp spines.

Even the catfish from the local coulees have barbs. I used to fish those when I was a kid and I was always careful how I handled them. I am currently studying the striped mullet which, so far, seems to have many  features that I like. It is considered a trash fish here in Louisiana because it supposedly has a muddy taste, but I think that if it is given a diet of 35% protein pellets along with lots of green veggies (omnivorous) it will taste OK. It eats anything, And if I remember correctly, it can live in temperatures as low as near freezing and as high as 40 C. It only grows to about 4 oz in the first year in the wild but in one controlled experiment it gained 63.2 grams in 90 days and  FCR was about 1.8 if fed 36% Protein. Here is a table showing some test results.

Table 3. Performance of grey mullet as affected by dietary protein level.

Parameters                                          Dietary Protein level (%)

                                               32                           36               40                       44

Initial weight (g)                  5.50                       5.60            5.60                    5.40

Final weight (g)                    41.7d                     68.8a        59.7b                  50.7c

Weight gain (g)                    36.2d                     63.2a        54.1b                  45.3c

SGR 1                                   2.26d                     2.81a        2.65b                  2.47c

Feed intake (g)                    94.21d                   113.76a   113.6b                104.19c

FCR 2                                   2.6a                       1.8d            2.1c                    2.3b

PER 3                                    1.19b     '              1.52a       1.18b                   0.97c

FE 4                                       0.38d                     0.56a       0.48b                   0.43c

Mortality (%)                       20.0a                     12.0c        16.0b                   16.0b

Do you know anything else about this fish that may be helpful?

Channel catfish are a great type of fish to grow in my opinion.  We got our first aquaponic channel catfish in March 2008 (they were very advanced fingerlings) and we ate our first catfish dinner in either August or October 2008 and that was in our first year of doing aquaponics.  We are in Florida so a bit warmer here so growth is fast.  Normally now we keep channel catfish for most of a year before we start eating them and they are usually 3-5 pounds at harvest.

We have bluegill now to in our systems and their growth rates are far more varied but we have gotten some to over 12 ounces in less than a year.

I've also grown tilapia, koi and goldfish.  The tilapia require too much heating in my opinion and don't grow big enough to be worth all the extra trouble and the koi/goldfish are not food to me so I'm not that interested in them personally though they are great if you want pets instead of food fish.

Wow, that's a real fast rate of growth. What I may do is try both the channel cat and the mullet in the same tank and then maybe I'll be able to make a better choice or if it seems to work OK maybe stick with both. You mention the tilapia and and it's slow growth rate, I was reading that in one trial test the  Pacu grew to about 3 pounds in one year and had a real low FCR of 1.58 when fed 36% protein. It is however classified as herbivorous. It is also supposedly much tastier than the tilapia or the catfish. I called a woman in Florida who has a restaurant and she orders them all prepared from Brazil. The only big turn-off for me is, according to my readings,  it is boney. So I guess the question is, how boney? I might try growing one someday just for fun. Another one that I'm looking at and gets big is the giant gourami.



TCLynx said:

Channel catfish are a great type of fish to grow in my opinion.  We got our first aquaponic channel catfish in March 2008 (they were very advanced fingerlings) and we ate our first catfish dinner in either August or October 2008 and that was in our first year of doing aquaponics.  We are in Florida so a bit warmer here so growth is fast.  Normally now we keep channel catfish for most of a year before we start eating them and they are usually 3-5 pounds at harvest.

We have bluegill now to in our systems and their growth rates are far more varied but we have gotten some to over 12 ounces in less than a year.

I've also grown tilapia, koi and goldfish.  The tilapia require too much heating in my opinion and don't grow big enough to be worth all the extra trouble and the koi/goldfish are not food to me so I'm not that interested in them personally though they are great if you want pets instead of food fish.

Wow, that's a real fast rate of growth. What I may do is try both the channel cat and the mullet in the same tank and then maybe I'll be able to make a better choice or if it seems to work OK maybe stick with both. You mention the tilapia and and it's slow growth rate, I was reading that in one trial test the  Pacu grew to about 3 pounds in one year and had a real low FCR of 1.58 when fed 36% protein. It is however classified as herbivorous. It is also supposedly much tastier than the tilapia or the catfish. I called a woman in Florida who has a restaurant and she orders them all prepared from Brazil. The only big turn-off for me is, according to my readings,  it is boney. So I guess the question is, how boney? I might try growing one someday just for fun. Another one that I'm looking at and gets big is the giant gourami.

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