Anybody keep fish in tanks for food

[Skean Dhude]

I've seen a few types of fish suitable for keeping in the back garfden for food. Black bream, tilapia, carp and trout have come up as suggestions but I have no idea which is best and would rather not be experimenting in my small garden so I'm after some advice.

Anyone got any experience in this? What is the best fish to use and the criteria is return rather than taste although I would like it to be edible.

[NorthernRaider]

I used to breed carp as a hobby, Common, Crucian, Mirror, Grass, Koi, Goldfish etc. For an unfiltered heavily planted pond cyprinids are best such as the Common Carp, If you have a top notch filter system you can do koi quite easily, Tilapia need slightly warmer water, and you need very pure and highly oxygenated water for trout, char etc.

Rule 1 you live in the UK you need a absolute MINIMUM of 4 ft deep water to house cyprinids outside in winter, The bigger the pond the bigger the fish, simples, cyprinids grow to the size of their environment.

Rule 2 dont feed em Trout pellets as it will kill em off early

Rule 3 10% weekly water changes are not optional

Rule 4 If you have small kids that are not olympic standard swimmers dont build a pond

In the UK in the middle ages up to the start of the industrial revolution almost every village and monestry kept a STEW POND, stew ponds were growing carp and tench in for food. Carp is still a staple fish in most of the Balkans, Steppes, and Northern Europe.

[Skean Dhude]

I used to keep marine fish, very expensive hobby and I have some horror stories about the natures ways and my wallet. The water changes are to remove toxins from the water and to replace vitamins and nutrients. For what I am thinking they will get removed by the plants and vitimins will be added via food. (Thats the theory anyway)

[NorthernRaider]

Partially right, water changes are especially needed with cyprinids as they pee continiously to maintain their chemical balance, thus they end up swimming around in their own pee and uric acid is not removed by filtration unless the aeroboic and anaerobic cycles are top notch. Then of course cyprinids are pigs they will eat almost anything that goes into their mouths, and many of em do not have stomaches as we know it so only 10% of what they eat gets absorbed the rest gets poohed back into the water. Thats why carp in stew ponds do so well cos they fertilise the pond plants.

[Aili]

[Tarrel]

[Metroyeti]

My mate lived in the woods for a few months best fish he catched were pike as they were the biggest.

SD marine fish look amazing but the constant upkeep puts me off

[Barneyboy]

My mate lived in the woods for a few months best fish he catched were pike as they were the biggest.

SD marine fish look amazing but the constant upkeep puts me off

pike is ok to eat bit earthy but good bit of meat ,so better than sitting there drinking water thinking about eatting

[T-oddity]

A couple of years ago I made a visit to the ABLE project in Wakefield to have a look at their aquaponic and hydroponic systems with my sister in law who was considering raising fish as a bussiness venture.
We spent the day with a very knowledgable chap Alberto Deocampo who showed us round and explained the whole set up and how the different systems worked, an excellent set up, but fairly standard as far as hydroponics and aquaponics go with various methods of water flow, filtration and nutrient capture.
One thing we did get to see was an experimental system that Alberto was trialling which was a green water system for raising grass carp which did away with water pumps and filters and was a close loop system
It relied on constant aeration to keep the water oxygenated and moving. Working along the lines of the fish were given a small amount of food a day (1 cup full) their waste fed green algae in the water, which in turn fed micro flora and hence a food chain back to the fish, the tank was round and about 3-4m across and absolutely full of dinner plate sized fish, the system was reliant on sunlight to feed the algae, the whole setup was inside a large building with a clear roof. Of all the systems I've seen it was the one I would love to trail on a small scale in my back garden it has the potential to produce a large amount of high food value in a very small space.
It's on my to do list anyway

[Tartar Horde]

My mate lived in the woods for a few months best fish he catched were pike as they were the biggest.

SD marine fish look amazing but the constant upkeep puts me off

pike is ok to eat bit earthy but good bit of meat ,so better than sitting there drinking water thinking about eatting

I second that! Pike is very nice if a bit boney. I make mine into fish cakes mmmmmm