aquaculture

[goanna]

We are about to make a plan for our garden.
I think about the possibility of keeping fish for the table.
We have plenty of rainfall here and a creek running at the lower end of our property.

How big must a pond be for keeping fish? Would 5 by 5 metres be enough?
How deep, because here there is a big issue about children safety and swimming pools.

We are in a cool climate and it can go down to minus 5 °C (not F).

We want to keep ducks as well, because of slugs and snails and there are wild ducks visiting anyway. A neighbour around 100 m away keeps roughly 50 ducks. Will they all visit us when we have a pond?

Is there a good book written for backyarders?

[kiwi]

Hi Goanna, you are in Aussie aren't you?  I have aquaponics on my to do list, you might be interested in it if the pond doesn't work out and you still want fish.  The book I  just got is an Australian book.  It might have some ideas you can use plus it is written for Australian and NZ conditions.

An Earth Garden Publication "Easy Aquaponics Back Yard Fish and Food" retails 19.95 inc gst.

[Emeline]

In my late teenage years I worked for a while on some commercial salmon farms/hatcheries.  I don't know how viable salmon are for a small operator but even on the farms/hatcheries some of the smaller ones were kept in those family sized para pools.  Most however were kept in very large concrete water races.  They need constant flowing water.  The two biggest problems were overfeeding - which can lead to fungal diseases on their skins, overcrowding (one farm had 6 million salmon, mainly small, but it was still overstocked) and BIRDS.

If you have fish in ponds birds will come from miles and miles and miles away to feast on them if they can, so if you do end up with fish in a pond I highly recommend you cover it with some kind of protective netting so the birds can't gain access.  On the farm I worked on beside the sea we were constantly trying to protect the fish from seagulls, kingfishers, ducks etc and sometimes even a few penguins showed up! 

This link might be helpful:

http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_pond.html

Good luck.  Love to hear how you get on if you proceed with the idea.

[goanna]

I'm not very interested in aquaponics, because we have a nice piece of land where I can grow our veg. And it is maybe a bit technical with pumps ans stuff, however the system is great for people with limited space.
The birds are eating yet all the fruit , but maybe here they are not so sound of fish, we're not at the coast. Netting is easy but looks ugly.

[onemintomidnight]

The biggest difference between aquaculture and aquaponics is the grow bed and associated drain. You are going to need all the same pumps and energy to use them. Not to mention all the water exchanges to get rid of the nitrate build up.

www.backyardaquaponics.com, is a great site with great people.

Which reminds me i need to get my butt back there to finish planning my set up. Got my tanks this winter. now time to put it all together.



If you use the stream to help cycle you water, you might want to know what is in it. You well end up eating what ever pollutants are in the stream. (ag industrial and household chemicals are rampant in most streams. You will also need to check your local regs for what kinds of fish are legal to raise. (particularly since your next to a nice body of water that they could get into.) 

[kumanari]

Google friendly aquaponics, they are here in Hawaii. You would be best to use tanks as the bacteria and sludge in a pond will clog pumps and filters. A pond is good if you grow in soil but the tank system will grow food faster utilizing 2% of the water you use in soil. There are many companies in Australia doing aqua but FA shows how you to build systems requiring much less $. Their systems are certified organic simple and cheap. Their site has a lot of info tank size/fish ratios, feeding, set ups ,crops etc. e if you need more. Buy the $49 pdf system and you will get your moneys worth just in info alone. Good luck.

[HungryRaven]

There's a few places that will sell you fish to raise for food.  I would try catfish or if warm enough maybe tilapia.  Although I think tilapia is always pretty muddy tasting but most that we get here is raised in China.  You can just imagine the conditions the water is kept in a Chinese fish farm not to mention the banned medicines and antibiotics they find traces of in the water. 

[BurghGirl]

Here's a link to the document the Peace Corp used...click on the "ERIC full text" link for the whole PDF version.  It's simple but has a lot of info in it:

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED242565&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED242565

Earth Ponds by Tim Matson is a pretty good reference for pond building.  You can get a used copy for under $5 on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Ponds-Building-Maintenance-Restoration/dp/0881501557/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265749076&sr=8-1

[goanna]

The link is awesome, a really good manual.
Who has practical experience in raising fish?