fish food

[Michael Osman]

Does any one grow there own fish food? Plants,...Black Soldier Flies,...etc.? I'm curious how it's working out? I'd like to be self sufficient with this.

Thanks, Michael

[George]

worms, BSF.  Mostly I use commercial fish food, except for feeding my one largemouth bass.  He eats lizards worms, sometimes fish I catch in the wild.

[Keith Rowan]

i grow crayfish, minnows and scuds to feed my yellow perch, as a supplemental feed

[Michael Osman]

Cool, I hadn't thought of minnows & such.

[Keith Rowan]

marmokrebs are my crayfish of choice as a supplemental feed..yellow perch love them

i harvested the last of my yellow perch and tilapia a couple months ago, all my glass tanks were full of minnows and crayfish.. all of the minnows are in the big tank now, and i'll be draining all my other tanks and putting all the crayfish in the pool as well.. come spring, i'll put my glass tanks back up and put a cray in each, then get my next batch of perch

i put 3 "milk-crate" structures in the big tank, each crate has a bunch of scrubbies suspended in it.. the minnows have been laying eggs since they went in the big tank, i use mostly 6' clay pots, but the minnows are already laying eggs on the new structures

[Michael Osman]

The crayfish have shells right? Do they eat them whole?

[Keith Rowan]

yes, the crayfish have shells, and the perch eat them whole.. i put 40+ 4" crays into the tank with the perch hoping to grow them out but even those got eaten, probably after molting

[George]

which minnow are you using?

Keith Rowan said:

i grow crayfish, minnows and scuds to feed my yellow perch, as a supplemental feed

[Keith Rowan]

fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) - mostly rosy reds (the orange color morph of the fathead)

i started with 50 or so from a big box pet store.. i was just about done raising them when i had a massive hatch.. several hundred in the tank right now

and i forgot to mention glass shrimp.. most of what you find in pet stores is the "southern" breed of glass shrimp (Palaemonetes paludosus), but if you have cooler temps, the northern strain is better (Palaemonetes kadiakensis) but harder to find

[George]

cool.  I hadn't thought of looking at the pet store.

Keith Rowan said:

fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) - mostly rosy reds (the orange color morph of the fathead)