Tilapia Food Source

[cat2wisson]

Since I'm new to keeping tilapia I have been experimenting with different foods and trying to find a low or no cost solution.
I purchased some floating pellets to get me started, which they eat greedily. Then I tried some java moss from my planted tank, drying it and crushing it up, the tilapia picked at it but didn't care for it very much. It may be that the fish I have are still pretty small and the moss may be too big for them so I'm going to keep the moss and will try again once they grow some. I have fed them duckweed which they eat right away, but needs to be grown and I'm concerned that once my fish get larger I won't be able to grow enough to supply all their needs(even though it grows very fast).
Today I found another solution that may work long term that they loved. My wife and I make juice quite often with an electric juicer and it produces lots of pulp as a by product. This morning I was making some carrot juice, looked at the pulp and decided to try some of that. I did find out that it will have to be dried out first, wet the pulp disintegrates too easily(would be great for fry). After I dried it out it dried into clumps that when put into the water stayed together till it was gone, and the fish attacked it. I've only tried carrots but I'm assuming that they will eat any type of vegetables we juice and the rest can be composed for our other garden.


cat2wisson

[sonelin]

I am thinking I want to get one of these. http://www.thebiopod.com/ they will let you harvest black soldier fly larvae. Also on these fourms there is a DIY ANIMAL PROTEIN section that has links on how to build your own pod. Here is the link to photo of plans http://www.aquaponicshq.com/forums/s...ck-Soldier-Fly

Tilapia will also eat plants so if you have some extra lettuce throw it in and they will eat it.

[Frydaze1]

Disclaimer: I haven't used or built these. But I'm researching it because it's in my plans for the near future.

The biopod seems a bit out of my budget. But this guy has one built out of a 5 gallon bucket, and it seems perfectly effective from what I can see. If you're into DIY (and nearly everyone doing AP is) this seems like a good home made substitute:
http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/bsf-b...r-version-2-1/

[sonelin]

Nice Ty for the link. I think I will try to build one of those this week. =)

[kellenw]

Hi Cat,

You are correct about the duckweed. It will take massive amounts of it in order to provide enough for fish food. However, it's a pretty good supplemental food item. It will have far more nutritional value if dried, as much of the mass of duckweed is just water.

I don't see anything wrong in feeding the fruit and veggie pulp to the fish in some form. Just keep in mind that it will be quite high in fiber, which will result in an increased amount of solid wastes from the fish. Supplemental solids filtration would be a good idea if this is something you intend to do regularly, just to be on the safe side and reduce maintenance requirements.

As mentioned by Sonelin and Frydaze1, Black soldier fly larvae are excellent supplemental food too. However, they are quite high in fat, so would not make a good primary food item unless the fat was rendered out to a degree or they were mixed with other food items to bring down the overall fat content to a reasonable level.

We've had several good discussions here on alternative and supplemental fish food items. Definitely would be worth the time searching for them. :-)

[sonelin]

I wonder if instead of using a bucket to collect them if I could put the down spout into the fish tank so they get a random free snack.

[kellenw]

I wonder if instead of using a bucket to collect them if I could put the down spout into the fish tank so they get a random free snack.

Sure, that'll work. It's similar to something a lot of us fishing pond guys do. We suspend a dead animal carcass in a mesh bag above the water, and the various maggots and what not fall from the bag into the water. It makes for a hot spot for fishing. We often refer to them as "rot bags" among other things.

From my own experience, it is a bit challenging to get BSF going in NW Missouri. I believe it's quite a ways outside their primary range.

[sonelin]

Drat on NW MO I found 2 other BSF buckets I liked. Def don’t want to buy a pod then but may still give a go at building a small one out of extra plumbing parts. I was reading on their forums as well and found 2 other styles of boxes that I liked.


http://www.resplore.com/projects/bsfl_harvester.html


http://gardenpool.org/?p=704

[Pugo]

Looks like the girls are waiting for a snack... Good post..

[keith_r]

nice pods.. you should be able to get some larvae from a pet store, they sell them as feed for reptiles, often called phoenix worms