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Raising catfish in a barrel

16K views 47 replies 15 participants last post by  Bullets~n~Beans 
#1 ·
http://www.survivalistboards.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1391

That's one of the survival files that I found quite interesting.

What about doing this is a large stock water tank? Or better, several tanks for keeping different aged batches going?

My head is already churning with plans to build a screened in shed to protect the fish from predators. My dogs would allow anything noisy to venture out there. Screen would stop mosquitoes and hold up a raccoon so that he may be dinner for the pups.

I cannot raise worms due to fire ants. Commercial fish food works quite well in nutrition and fast growth. If SHTF I'd have to come up with something else to feed, or just clean and freeze what I have on hand.

The aerators can probably be run with a timer and solar charged heavy truck batteries.

When and if my pond ever fills back up I can stock that, too.

The potential is there for a lot of meat with a fairly small investment. i HAVE 33 acres to play with.

Thoughts?
 
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#3 ·
Read an article years ago Guy raised earthworms from a compost pile, got good fertilizer, free fish food, and fed them feed corn too. Fast growth. With water above 55 degrees and preferably in the 70's, you can do tilapia. They grow faster, and are 90% vegitarian.

Drums of water keep greenhouse warm in winter, and fish grow faster when the waters warmer. Old poopy fish water is great for plants. Tilapia and earthworms eat plants, and the occassional worm I think its a great semi-aquaponic system.
 
#6 ·
Read an article years ago Guy raised earthworms from a compost pile, got good fertilizer, free fish food, and fed them feed corn too. Fast growth. With water above 55 degrees and preferably in the 70's, you can do tilapia. They grow faster, and are 90% vegitarian.

Drums of water keep greenhouse warm in winter, and fish grow faster when the waters warmer. Old poopy fish water is great for plants. Tilapia and earthworms eat plants, and the occassional worm I think its a great semi-aquaponic system.
Ah! Tilapia! Even better! Thanks! I hadn't even considered them.

For the majority of the year keeping water temps down would probably be my main problem. With a tin shed to keep the sun off I think that I can do it.

As for winters, they're pretty short and mild here and getting more so each year. I'd consider putting a water heater in a closed line loop, or maybe just let them rough it and wait for spring.

"Two feet tall with an 8 diameter, this tough polyethylene stock tank with drain is molded as a single piece and will hold 625 gallons. Available in blue only."

I'm not sure if 2 feet deep is enough, but this 625 gallon tank gets good ratings and is $299:

http://www.tractorsupply.com/livestock/livestock-equipment/stock-tanks-accessories/stock-tanks/american-farmland-round-tank-8-x-2-in-plastic-2177188
 
#4 ·
Hmmm.

Solar air pumps as low as $30.00.
23/32 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. RTD under $20.00
6mil plastic sheeting under $20.00
Screws, wood glue and contact cement and vinyl tubing under $15.00
roughly 16"d x 16"w x 64"l functional tank for with aeration under $90.00
Build more and they get cheaper as you go along because of over purchases. A second and third tank could be longer because of left over cuts.

Solar water pumps can be had for $40.00.
I would use one for sediment settling filtration. After a few inches collect, stop flow and allow the settling to complete then siphon out the main body of water. This would further reduce the amount of water needed to replace between changes and give a thicker mass for the compost at a time.


REM,

About your fire ant problem. What about building raised worm/compost beds? I mean if you start thinking in TEOTWAWKI terms then eventually no commercial fish food.
 
#7 ·
Hmmm.

Solar air pumps as low as $30.00.
23/32 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. RTD under $20.00
6mil plastic sheeting under $20.00
Screws, wood glue and contact cement and vinyl tubing under $15.00
roughly 16"d x 16"w x 64"l functional tank for with aeration under $90.00
Build more and they get cheaper as you go along because of over purchases. A second and third tank could be longer because of left over cuts.

Solar water pumps can be had for $40.00.
I would use one for sediment settling filtration. After a few inches collect, stop flow and allow the settling to complete then siphon out the main body of water. This would further reduce the amount of water needed to replace between changes and give a thicker mass for the compost at a time.
Are you raising fish? Meat? Or a goldfish pond?


REM,

About your fire ant problem. What about building raised worm/compost beds? I mean if you start thinking in TEOTWAWKI terms then eventually no commercial fish food.
They are persistent little critters. I can do that with applications of bait, spot treatments and friggin' sticky fly strips wound around all of the posts maybe. Then the airborne tree droppers would be all that I'd have to deal with. Once in the soil it is theirs. I could make tight fitting screened covers I guess.
 
#8 ·
http://www.survivalistboards.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1391

I cannot raise worms due to fire ants. Commercial fish food works quite well in nutrition and fast growth. If SHTF I'd have to come up with something else to feed, or just clean and freeze what I have on hand.Thoughts?


No plan to obtain fish food = no fish after TSHTF.

If you want to do this as a fun backyard experiment have at it. But, don't kid yourself into thinking this is a good investment of survival dollars. Buy canned tuna or a fishing rod.
 
#10 ·
I dunno. I think that I can make it work with minimal investment.

My pond is dry for the first time since 1975, but that does leave a lot of years with a very healthy pond. I think that with a few tanks and the restocked pond and a seine net it will work. Only labor required.

The key to a healthy pond is maintaining a healthy stock of bait fish. Minnows and goldfish can be raised in other tanks, or in the pond when it does refill and seined to harvest them out of the pond.

Like other fish they (bait fish) really grow fast in warm aerated water.
 
#9 ·
Raising fish, aka fish farming, is called Aquaculture. Growing plants in a water medium is called Hydroponics. Combining the two is called Aquaponics. All are a very common thing to do. Google it.

This past summer we had all kinds of hydroponics going. We also bought the stock tanks ect for the fish. As soon as harvest season is over we're going to build a greenhouse on the back porch and go for the winter Aquaponics.

What we are eventually striving for is a worm farm under the rabbit's, worms feed the fish, fish fertilize the plants. Both produce food and the food scraps feed back into the worms.

So now we get rabbit meat, fish and fresh produce for almost nothing.
 
#18 ·
I so have to agree with REM, as long as the effort can be held down than as a easily harvest-able dietary supplement it is a good idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
20' x 100' 10mil Plastic Sheeting for $200.00
Add a shovel and a method to keep a current going and the question is, "Can you say trout?"
OK so for most of us that would be a pipe dream, but post The Fall I cant see a reason not to have a trench 2' deep 15' wide and 95' long. OK so I can see one, you want different dimensions.
 
#20 ·
I am looking at using the family pool. Rather large above ground that no one uses anymore. On the surface of the water I am going to use Styrofoam with holes cut out for my plants. Plants grow fast with fish under them supplying nutrients. There is a video on YouTube about doing it this way. Good luck. I wanted to do Tilpia but you can't raise them here it is against the law for some darn reason. So I am going with Bass. Buying me some minnows and go from there.
 
#21 ·
The thought of an above ground pool did cross my mind. I wasn't sure if the liner would be tough enough to handle the brushing of fins. Very good idea! Please let us know how it works. I'd figure that bass would do quite well in a large container fed minnows.

Tilipia are also known as grass carp. They were illegal to possess in Texas, too. They eat vegetation and the worry was that they would eat all vegetation and leave nothing for other fish. Well, our vegetation has exploded and now they are legal in Texas. Fertilizer run off and invasive plant introductions were choking out the waters here.

http://tilapiafarmingathome.com/legal.aspx

http://tilapiafarmingathome.com/default.aspx



Wow! This is something to write home about!
 
#24 ·
http://www.survivalistboards.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1391

That's one of the survival files that I found quite interesting.

What about doing this is a large stock water tank? Or better, several tanks for keeping different aged batches going?

My head is already churning with plans to build a screened in shed to protect the fish from predators. My dogs would allow anything noisy to venture out there. Screen would stop mosquitoes and hold up a raccoon so that he may be dinner for the pups.

I cannot raise worms due to fire ants. Commercial fish food works quite well in nutrition and fast growth. If SHTF I'd have to come up with something else to feed, or just clean and freeze what I have on hand.

The aerators can probably be run with a timer and solar charged heavy truck batteries.

When and if my pond ever fills back up I can stock that, too.

The potential is there for a lot of meat with a fairly small investment. i HAVE 33 acres to play with.

Thoughts?
Don't know when this was originally brought up, but I remember reading about it pre-Y2k.
 
#27 ·
We winter our koi in a stock tank in the basement every year. We could not eat them unless we were really, REALLY hungry, though, they are our pets. But they do fine over the winter. However, it takes a lot of external energy input: Electricity to run the pumps and the light, plus koi food. But they love us so we must do this. :)
 
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#29 ·
Hmmm. That's a good thought! :)

It's still dry. I just went out and checked it to see if any of the 1.5" rain we got last week made it in. The parched cracked ground evidently drank the rain as it fell.

I think that it's still mushy under the dried crust and red clay is a bear to work in. If I tried getting it out with the bucket on my tractor I'm sure to get stuck as heck. A track hoe is the proper tool for the job and I'm not flush enough to afford it right now. I invested all that I could on getting caught up on prep items.

They have predicted another year very similar to this one next year. If that pans out I will be compelled to act. I'll remember to get the fertilizer out first and pile it. Then he can dig it deeper and maybe enlarge it some,

BTW, how did you come up with "allergyfree"? I need some tips! My allergies are horrible. My mom has become allergic to almost everything including most foods. She has to alternate the ones that she can eat so as not to become allergic to them too.
 
#33 ·
AH! well then Glauber's salt (sodium sulfate) would be a boon for ya in the winter.
You put it in stainless steel cans and make sure they receive as much sunlight during the day as possible. It makes great passive solar heating, if you add reflectors so that they are receiving even more light then they just get better. And I have seen it sold for $2.00 a pound in 1lb increments so I'm positive it can be had even cheaper.

Just checked my notes and they say calcium chloride hexahydrate is good too, but I have never tried it. Probable because it isn't easy to find or it is expensive. But hey 10 years later and I remembered what notebook it was in. That's good enough for me. :D::thumb:
 
#47 ·
Thanks a lot, I can only stop thinking about this for short periods.
Seems to me that "green house" is to generic of a term for an indoor structure to use. That is if you want maximum year round usage. A sun-pit seems like a better option.
For those that don't know, a sun-pit typically has 3-4 feet underground or a 3-4 foot berm around it.
A hybrid sun-pit has 100% of its south wall exposed and in some cases up to 50% of the east and or west wall.
With a sun put you are making a trade off, amount of light for winter temperature stability.
Now I think, if you gobble up the floor space with 1', 2', 3' deep tanks, why bother letting light in lower anyway.

Now:
You add a windmill to power mechanical pumps and store electricity for electric pumps on those windless days.
Higher efficiency passive solar heating during the winter months along the north wall.
Solar aerators for emergency redundancy.
And for the summer, Roman air conditioning.
Sounds like a year round set up to me.

[quick n dirty calcs based of a lack of investigation]
A 10'x10x3' is about 2244 gallons. So if you went with 10 gallons per pound of fish, 224 pounds. That doesn't sound to intensive and you would be producing more than enough fish. When you consider that, you will be removing fish from the system to maintain the ratio and a 200 man is only suppose to need a maximum 52 pounds of animal protein a year. Seems like a 300 square foot sun-pit could over provide the animal protein for a family of 800 lbs.
[/quick n dirty calcs based of a lack of investigation]
 
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