Goldfish home-made food

[Eric T]

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.

[Carey Ma]

This sounds like a very good plan. However, like with anything else,comming to a propper balance will be crutial to success. The more one complicates their system, the more potential unbalance one may encounter.

Personally,I would not go through all that trouble for goldfish (esp if they are nothing special or fancy. I wrote an article on making flake food in my "Make your own feed" group.

Cheers

[Keith Rowan]

why is commercial fish feed not an option?

i pay less than $1.00lb

you should be able to get a good food for your goldfish from a feed mill, at around $30 for 50lbs

and supplement with bsf larvae, duckweed etc ...

[Eric T]

Carey, thanks for pointing me to that group.  It sounds like you like to dry then pulverize all the ingredients first, then add water to make paste, then dry into flakes.  Would you also dry the worms and larvae?  I was thinking of just feeding everything fresh/alive, maybe chop it up a little just before feeding (if the fish are too small to eat a whole larvae or worm).  I'm just starting at this (zero experience with feeding fish), so not sure of the rationale behind what people do.  Would you say goldfish require flake food, for example?  Thanks for your help.

Keith, I did a search for aquaculture feed, and the lowest price I found was about $3/lb.  Please tell me where you buy it for that low price.

[Keith Rowan]

i found a local pet store that is a purina distributor, and called and asked if they would order for me and they had no problem doing so.. i've bought two different bags.. the higher protein feed for fingerlings was 43 i think, the lower protein was closer to $30

i bought 50lbs of silvercup high protein fish food (it's been renamed, to skrettings) for $29 at a feed mill

http://www.fishchow.com/  will let you search for a purina dealer by zipcode

[Carey Ma]

Yes, I do dry everything includung worms and grubs so my fish get more concentrated nutrients for winter food (if needed). I mainly do pond culture now so don't make as much feed as I use to. Now I mainly rely on my pond's biodiversity to feed my fish using animal urin as my main input sourse.

Goldfish are a type of carp so it would be realitively simple to get a large tank (IBC tote) or two and let it mature naturally, creating your opwn pond culture. You wont raise as many fish that way at first but with your input of urin, could producejustas many fish.

Thisyear I completed a few Pee-ponics experiments with very good results.

[Chuck Goecke]

I've had good results feeding my Koi and goldfish with about 50% cheap cat food, and about 50% guinea pig food.  I know the cat food isn't correctly balanced for them, being too high in fat and not having any vitamin C, but guinea pig food has vit c and being mostly alfalfa and wheat middings, is low in fat and high in fiber.  I think compared to regular commercial fish feed, this makes the water a bit dirtier, with all that extra fiber in the water, but its good for the fish, and super clear water doesn't really matter to me that much.  There is just more life in the water, for the fish to snack on when I'm not feeding them.

[Keith Rowan]

i wouldn't mix a "peeponics" in a system that had fish,, worms and grubs are very high in fat, so not as "nutritious" as you think..

i guess the idea of "commercial" fish feed scares lots of people off, but most are designed to provide the best growth and the best health of the fish species the food is made for.. and by using a good quality fish food, you don't need to worry about adding anything for your plants after they system matures..

lots of pond owners establish a biodiverse habitat, but still rely on fish food to get the best growth

[George]

If there is a feed and seed store nearby, they will probably order Aquamax for you.  The Purina website  has information about their various fish feeds.

Eric T said:

Keith, I did a search for aquaculture feed, and the lowest price I found was about $3/lb.  Please tell me where you buy it for that low price.

[George]

Or possibly turned off sometimes by ground chicken feather content and the possibility of no telling what being an ingredient in the feed. 

Keith Rowan said:

i guess the idea of "commercial" fish feed scares lots of people off,

[George]

Skretting.us has a downloadable brochure about their company and sources.  Pond LE (floating pellets) is one of their products -  .50 per pound plus UPS for 40lb bags.  You should come in under $1.00 for what sounds like a good product.  This was formerly Silver Cup Fish Feed.  I believe they have some flake feed too.

http://www.skretting.us/

Skretting USA
712 East 2400 North
Tooele, UT 84074

Toll Free: 1-800 521 9092
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

E-mail: [e-mail]

[Keith Rowan]

easy enough to allay those fears by doing a little fact checking.. you can find every ingredient used if you look..

aside from that, i've seen lots of refrences to cat food (i used catfood for my minnows when waiting for my order of fish food) or dog food,  even horse and guinnee pig food.. do you think those don't have fillers? or would you buy your cat dog food because it was cheaper? 

George said:

Or possibly turned off sometimes by ground chicken feather content and the possibility of no telling what being an ingredient in the feed. 

Keith Rowan said:

i guess the idea of "commercial" fish feed scares lots of people off,

[George]

Yes and when you do the fact checking you'll find that most fish foods contain indigestible chicken feathers, which aren't helpful in an aquaponics system.  Some fish foods are easier to check than others.  This is not like quite like buying food for humans.  No, I don't buy any of that other stuff you mentioned.

Keith Rowan said:

easy enough to allay those fears by doing a little fact checking.. you can find every ingredient used if you look..

aside from that, i've seen lots of refrences to cat food (i used catfood for my minnows when waiting for my order of fish food) or dog food,  even horse and guinnee pig food.. do you think those don't have fillers? or would you buy your cat dog food because it was cheaper? 

George said:

Or possibly turned off sometimes by ground chicken feather content and the possibility of no telling what being an ingredient in the feed. 

Keith Rowan said:

i guess the idea of "commercial" fish feed scares lots of people off,