I remember reading an article a while back about someone farming fish (for the table) on a very small scale (in a couple of cubic metres of water, I believe). I think it was catfish.
Anyone have experience of this kind of thing? How difficult would it be to set uop and what species are suitable?
None of this may be helpful, but I used to know someone who ran a fish farm. It was a fairly small operation. (Well, it might have been- I’ve never seen another fish farm to compare it to.) He had one warehouse and about 200 tanks. I’d say the tanks were about 600 gallons each, and were seperated by the age of the fish. He raised catfish, which seem to be popular for farming, and he also raised just a few tanks of roughy. There were always a lot of fish in one tank, so I guess this cut down on the space needed.
He decided to do this because he’d always loved working with fish. (No kidding.) I know the start-up costs were fairly low, considering, about 15,000 US. It was a lot of work- the fish had to be fed 3 times a day and monitored carefully to seperate out the pregnant females, deal with any disease that might crop up, etc. He had 3 people working for him, and he personally worked about 60 hours a week.
He sold the fish to local supermarkets and restaurants by the pound, and he seemed to do pretty well. He managed to afford a house after about 4 years at this.
Is this what you mean? Raising fish for commercial consumption? I also knew a koi hobbyist who bred them in just two small backyard ponds, and he could sell an unusual specimen for about 1,000 US. His start-up costs were low as well, but again, it was pretty labor-intensive and it doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing you can just casually get into or run “on the side” for some extra income.
I realize this is all anecdotal, but I hope it helps answer your question.
I’m looking for a way to raise fish on a very small scale as a partial self-sufficiency thing.
It’s good that you’re looking for self-sufficiency, because you will never make enough money to live on unless:
a) it’s bigger than small-scale… more like small warehouse, some staff, and 8+ hours a day of your time.
b) you live nowheres near an existing supply of fish or another fish farm
c) you are now and always will be the only one who raises the fish and there is a well-established market and high price for the fish.
I’ve spent enough time studying/working/researching aquaculture to know it’s not the thing to do if you want to get rich in your spare time (unless you happen to have a few dozen horseshoes crammed into your orifaces :D).
That said, for food it depends where you are… more like what the water temperature will be. Salmonids require lots of cool cleanish water, or lots of space (like a pond). Bottom-feeders and more temperate fish can get by with less. Some tropicals like tilapia will need heated water, but the major advantage with them is that they have evolved to be very tolerant of poor water quality. That means you can crowd them and feed them more plant-based food rather than protein-based food.
Now do you mean self sufficiency as in eating a fresh fish every day or two year-round, or having a hundred or so to freeze in the winter? The former you’ll need to put more in (time, space, effort), the later you could throw some fingerlings in a pond and net them out a few months later with very little input or feeding - (you’d just better have something to eat in the mean time ;)).
Mangetout, what is your market for these fish? Are you intending to sell fish for food, or for aquaria?
I was down at Epcot two weeks ago and got a backstage tour of their fish farming set up. Some of them they can do in just a few cubic meters of water. But the gear looked expensive.
But they got a lot of protein out of it (though the grad student giving the tour dodged my question about energy expenditure per pound of protein in fish farming vs traditional cattle ranching).
I’m intending to eat them myself, but I don’t expect to live off them or stop buying fish altogether, I just want to supplement my protein intake with something home-produced (and ideally economical).
This is the article I mentioned, or it is very similar.
I think you’d be interested in reading about aquaponics, and kill two birds with one stone. It’s growing fish on a small scale in tanks and running the water through a hydroponics set-up - the plants use the nutrients from the dirty fish water, and the fish get their water cleaned up to a higher degree than with a bio-filter alone. Here are a couple links:
There are tons more; those are just the first few I came across. I have also seen many old articles from the 70s and 80s about growing food fish small-scale (big tip-off is black&white photos of homesteader men bent over their tanks or of a netfull of fish). It seemed to be the new “in thing” back then, and most of the articles are the same:
Use a couple of old steel drums, 100lbs of course gravel, throw some small fish in and toss in a few handfuls of worms or blended liver every day et Voila, a few months later you’re eatin’!
Don’t get me wrong, they can work… but most of the systems written about were prototypes and a lot were written by people who didn’t really know what they were doing - just trial and error. Also remember the costs of equipment from old articles are usually at least 10 times higher today. They are a good starting point, but the processes, equipment, technology, and science behind is has come a long way. For example there are now many excellent pellet diets specifically formulated for different fish species (no need to raise/blend your own live food), and that lovely material plastic (ah what would I do without my 45 gal plastic drums, buckets, hoses, fittings, screens…). Much more inert and easier to work with than metal, not to mention lighter. Bah, I’m rambling here - check out aquaponics (it’s today’s “in thing”) or some of the newer aquaculture articles.
Hey, just in case you were mainly interested in the protein aspect, not necessarilly the fish aspect, you could set up a rabbit hutch fairly simply. I know I know I know I know…rabbits are cute. but them’s good eatin’! Here in the CZ some people have rabbit hutches that provide them with a good amount of meat. The hutches are built on top of each other (picture multiple bird-cages all stacked together) and the rabbits grow fairly quickly cuz they, well, y’know. I’d probably make a more humane setup than most people here have, but the space requirement would still be negligable (I’d assume something 1.5m deep by 2.5m-3m high by 4m long would provide c. 2 rabbits a week after you got the schedule down).
Just a thought.
-Tcat
I did consider rabbits or guinea pigs for the table, but I don’t think my kids (aged 4 and 7) would ever talk to me again.
Another possibility is purchase of an airgun; wood pigeons are frequent visitors to my garden.
Quote Mangetout
I don’t think my kids (aged 4 and 7) would ever talk to me again.
They have to get used to the idea that animals are ment for food.
You might see if there is a 4H club near you.They are too young for 4H, age limit is 9, but maybe some of their
friends siblings are members.
If you raise rabbits raise earthworms under the rabbits. Fishfood or bait.
One trick is don’t let them name the rabbits. I used a numbering system. Its hard to fall in love with number 8.
Also if they are all new zealand whites they all look the same.
I’ve also heard of raising catfish in 55 gallon drums.
One of the few things I haven’t tried.
One thought. The popularity of small plastic ponds just might work into your plans.
About 20 years ago, my Uncle Gene was a wildlife management prof at Ohio State University (they didn’t add the “The” until later.) He claimed that, with a workload of three hours a week, one could harvest a couple of tons of trout yearly from a quarter-acre pond. He meant a dirt-bottom, dammed-up stream kind of pond. If I were planning a finny truck farm, I’d start my inquiries at The Ohio State University. Dr. E.E. Good is probably retired by now.
I believe fish farming is very polluting to water and in operations of any significant size you need to process the water before you can release it back into the wild.
Now, when you say very small “scale” fish…
Possibly, although it might just work out that they decide their dad is a heartless, callous, bastard - and I’d rather scrap the project than end up with that.
I’ve never heard of 4H - what is it?
Re: the water pollution that Sailor mentions; I would imagine that this would manifest itself in the form of nitrates and phosphates in the water - this being the case, it might be practical (indeed desirable) to use the water on a large vegetable garden.
What kind of space are we talking about? My father has been very successful in setting up a fish pond in his backyard. Of course, he is a professional aquaculturist and the backyard is rather large for the city. But the fish pond itself just takes up a little corner of the yard.
4H is an agricultural club/program for kids here in the States. I’m sure someone who didn’t grow up on in Nassau County, Long Island can tell you more. 
What about raising some kind of carp? Aren’t goldfish carp or related to carp? (I know that carp is often used for gefilte fish, but that’s not much an endorsement.)
My friend put in a decorative pond with a few pretty goldfish. She wasn’t thinking of breeding possiblities, but she has found that in the last 2 years, they have bred in a most impressive fashion. And this is just a tiny pre-fab pond where she doesn’t do anything more than grow a few water plants and throw in some fish food.
This is a neat thread, by the way. I am looking to add ever more homegrown stuff to our diet. Self-sufficiency isn’t an option, but I’d like to supplement the store-bought stuff as much as I can.
At the moment, I probably don’t have space without sacrificing an important part of the garden (which is the shape of a quarter-circle, only 20 metres or so in radius, plus a 2x20m strip of kitchen garden - most of our vegetables are grown off-site at the allotment).
The reason I started thinking about this again was that I drove past a large abandoned plastic water tank (the kind that is built on top of a four-foot pallet and enclosed in a tubular alloy cage) - probably 5 cubic metres capacity, or something like that) - it looked ideal for the job and I’m pretty sure I could find a space for it, but I think for any practical scheme, I need a series of tanks for fish in various stages of development.
But it will probably be 5 years until we move to a house with enough land for a decent on-site vegetable garden and proper room for some livestock (chickens, perhaps a pig) - I thought a small-scale fish farm would be a different and interesting project.
If you’re going to raise carp, you’re better off doing it for the money than for food (I’ve seen Koi sell for ~~ $1000).