Feed

[Nate Irish]

Hello like minded friends I am setting up a system that I hope to raise Tilapia, its been my understanding that these fish are vegetarians and you can grow their food source. My question is what kind of foods can you grow for them and how? thank you for all the information that you all provide it is so helpful and you are helping a community of people wanting to become self sustained

[halemart]

Hi,

There have been several discussions on the forum for making your own feed, to what types of off the shelf feeds to use, if you look around you will probably find several links.

I have been feeding my one talipia koi food and it has been doing very well.     I also feed them Black soldier flies and moringa leaves.     

There are many different feeds to choose from, what has been helpful for me was to pick up a book or two that dealt directly with talipia, I found in there people across the world have used compost piles next to their ponds that helped the pond, along with other methods.

I have also feed him lettuce and kale, I found he took it faster if I cut it up in to small bit size pieces.

I have an idea, that I am working on to try tree spinich that has been boiled.    I believe I could grow all kinds of that and have a ready food source.    Duck weed works as well, but you have to have a large surface area to grow it properly.

[TCLynx]

The idea that tilapia are vegetarians is a bit misleading.  Tilapia are omnivorous and when they are young they actually need rather high protein feed.  Adult tilapia can filter feed on algae and zoo plankton but the young haven't yet developed the gill rakes needed to filter feed so they will grow much better when you feed them a high quality feed.

While tilapia can be fed a wide variety of things, don't expect to get the super fast growth of a commercial operation by just feeding your tilapia lettuce scraps and duckweed.  Many people hear the hype about tilapia being really fast growing (like growing tilapia out in 8 months or something crazy like that) and that they can be fed lettuce scraps and that the can survive water down to 55 F and that you can breed your own and that they can survive poor water quality and low levels of dissolved oxygen.  Please keep in mind that you can't do all those things at once.  If you want to grow out tilapia in 8 months you will be doing it in warm water with high quality commercial feed in good water quality with high levels of dissolved oxygen and probably all male fish.  If you want to just feed lettuce scraps and duckweed, you will probably not be growing the tilapia out to even 1 lb in less than 12 months unless all other conditions are perfect.  If you do not have all male tilapia, you will probably not be growing them out very big very fast.  If you are breeding your own, the breeding tends to distract them from eating and growing and if you have too many small fish, you might have trouble growing them very large.  AND if your water temperature is below 70 F, your tilapia are not going to be eating or growing very much at all.

Tilapia might have many good points but keep in mind that there are other native fish that are just as good.

[TCLynx]

Well if you are not overly interested in eating your fish, you could always grow Koi and goldfish as pets.

I expect that once you finish off the small bag of Aquamax 400 you will want to see if you can switch to Aquamax 4000 or something for grow out.  The 400 is good for the babies though.

[John Wroten]

I to am wondering how I can supplament the fish store food with vegys. I want to grow duck weed but I am yet to read how to set up a grow system. I see on u-tube that they use kiddies pools, but they dont tell how they recirculate the water. What temps it needs to be, water and ambient temps. I know there are folks out there than can tell all the ins and out. I'm teady to copy...John

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

Floating waste is a sign of higher fat levels in the diet. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but you don't want to overdo the fat. Don't go over 10%.

John, we're putting together a duckweed system in our greenhouse using our fry tank. the tank's 29 gals & will serve two duckweed trays. it will pump into the top of the trays from the tank & will drain from into the tank from the bottom of the trays. The opening of the outlet that drains back into the tank will sit about 1.5-2" above the bottom of the trays, so the water will never fully drain out. We're using a cap fitting that will keep the duckweed in the trays. Any duckweed that slips through the drain will go into the fish tank for a treat.The pump will be on a timer so the water will be refreshed regularly. We'll probably also add a simple filter prior to the trays. 

Duckweed handles a wide range of temps, fortunately. We're in the desert, but we get freezes in the winter. Duckweed will go to bud or seed in freezing weather, so the water needs to be heated in really cold weather.  As for heat, as long as the water is cycled often enough it can handle the desert temps, too.

[Jon Parr]

Yeah, I know I'm a couple of months late to the party here, but just thought I'd add that I feed my tilapia rabbit pellets; very cheap, sustainable, locally available everywhere at every feed store, and seems to be a whole food for tilapia. Once they get used to it, they prefer it over aquamax 4000. I recently graduated a batch of fry and fed them a mix of rabbit feed and AM4000. At first, they went for the AM4000, maybe because of the protein, or maybe because it floats and fry prefer to hang out up top. Within a few days, 1" fry actually began to go for the sinking rabbit feed first. Now at 4" long, they are my fastest growing batch I've ever raised, and the ratio is 90/10 rabbit pellets to AM4000. Be warned, rabbit feed produces a lot of mulm, and a good pump is needed to keep it cleaned. Worms in the growbed go ape over the mulm and any uneaten food, so all good. It's very rich in nitrogen, so make sure your biofilter can handle it, and you have plenty of heavy drinking plants to pull nitrates.

[TCLynx]

Makes sense Jon, rabbit feed is heavy in alfalfa isn't it?

[Jon Parr]

It's got alfalfa, TC, but not too much, as rabbits can get calcium spurs from high alfalfa diet. I think it's predominantly Timothy hay. I'll have to read my ingredient label and get back to you.

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

Timothy hay is the most common food for rabbits. Interesting idea, Jon. I'm going to share your post with the AZ group--there aren't any good suppliers of feed around here yet.

[TCLynx]

Sheri,  you should be able to get aquamax fish feed from feed stores that are purina dealers (all but tractor supply) just go to the purina web site and put in the zip code to search for dealers.  then call them up and see if they could get a bag of Aquamax 4000 dense culture feed put on the next delivery for you and how much it would cost.  You don't necessarily want them to stock it since fish feed goes bad so quick if it sits around on the shelf for long it could be bad before you can use up a 50 lb bag.

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

We've done that, and have found a couple who stock pond food & a couple have promised to "look into" ordering other varieties, or to "get back to us" about the cost of an individual bag. I think some are starting in Phoenix, but our valley is very spread out.I don't want to drive 2 hours to get food. I heard of one close by recently that might be selling it, but I haven't had time to follow up.

The feed stores around here are small, family owned shops who have sold horse, cattle, goat & chicken supplies forever, but feeding something that doesn't graze is a new idea. (Water? What's water?) So we're kind of breaking into new territory. I  think we'll see a big change over the next year or two.  :)

[TCLynx]

Well if any of those mom n pop feed stores sell any purina, they can probably get it for you but you might have to wait for their next truck delivery to get it and who knows what their ordering schedule is like if they are small.  Or you can order from aquatic eco systems or from Sylvia if you don't mind shipping.