Aquaculture issues and aquaculture solutions

[Moe]

Hi guys, thought i'd share this. I'm currently doing some work experience at an aquaculture facility in South East Queensland, Australia. Today I brought up the topic of feed; namely the fish meal added to fish food which is actually generally trawler by catch. He said its not his job to deal with the problem; his job is to provide fingerling fish.

By no means is the guy some evil tyrant; he has produced thousands of fingerlings which have ended up in aquaponic systems around Australia. He is the major supplier of aquaponic fingerlings in Aus. He is however, of retirement age so I can see his point of view, he made some good points about sustainable management of fish as being part of the solution to be in fish meal. I, however am 23, and will no doubt see the rough end of the stick in my life time as will my children as we transition away from a fossil fuel based economy. I don't see by catch as being a part of the solution to future fish meal because it will be too darn expensive to send those boats out to get the damn fish meal lol.

Anyway, Solutions! (yay!) we're all about positivism in permaculture right?

He went and delivered some fingerlings to a guy near Cairns, specifically the Atherton table lands (google maps that if you want). Climate tropical, maybe wet/dry tropics not sure.

He left him some jade or silver perch,

Jade perch (2nd highest omega-3 content of any fish in the world)

Tropics to Subtropics


Silver perch (4th highest omega-3 content in the world)

Tropics to Cool temperate (handles to low temps (not freezing) but stops feeding at about 12)

He left him some feed as well, which was stored away in a cool-shed for food longevity...

6-8 months or whatever grow out period later, he returns. The farmer showed him to the shed after a meal of nice perch. The shed was full of fish feed, unused. In disbelief my boss went to see his ponds. There were massive fish jumping out of it along with

Floating rafts of this stuff...



with a current distribution off...



Of course, usual story - noxious weed (introduced by the cattle industry) that needs to be destroyed.

Its name:

Para grass - Urochloa mutica (syn. Brachiaria)
http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/discove.../JCUDEV_012266

the fish were feeding on the roots of the plant.

the fish texture turned out excellent, low fat, very lean, high quality table fish.

Supplimented feeding was done by lucerne hay...


The second thing he talked about was using the by product fish waste water to feed pastures after draining, and then this was used to fatten cattle... but nothing new here.

he said hes seen no large scale aquaponics systems that are commercially viable. which i think is awesome, because ive seen them managed on a local level and they produce a lot of food for a lot of people, as long as the live in a close vicinity of it, how it should be.


Oh, if your wandering about floating rafts ...

floating raft system in poor countries



polystyrene floating raft





peace out ya'll.

-Morrissey

[Pakanohida]

He has seen no large scale ops? Really?

Here is one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfScfxkmWw4

1 MILLION pounds of Food on 3 acres. 1 pump,10000 fish, 500 yards of compost. How is that for commercially viable?




Your floating raft has me thinking since the Water Hyacinths I had died, and sank to the bottom of the pond. I want and need to stay away from Polystyrene since it too is unsustainable. Thank you for the great read.

[Moe]

Ah yeah thats growing power in Milwaukee. They're actually fairly close to a residential area.
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en...-8&sa=N&tab=wl

As is this project which i did some volunteer work on...
http://www.ceres.org.au/greentech/aquaponics

im talking about people trying to do broad acre aquaponics as they do with wheat or sugar cane here in Australia. Then sending it hundreds of kilometers. Which is good so aquaponics not only forces you to do organic (cant use biocides or fish die) it also forces you to go local.

[Grasshopper]

We cant legally grow Taliapa in Australia which makes it a little more difficult
They breed like rabbits and eat anything.
There are heaps of them about in local dams already and they keep getting spread by floods and birds so if the SHTF it would probably become option number 1.

Im very interested in aquaponics and will hopefully start my first system in the next year.
Trick will be to reduce having to buy food and power,I was looking at 12v bugs zappers,floating maggot attractors, BSF ,Meal Worms and moringa leaves as well as duckweed and worms.
Maybe even a secondary food production tank of goldfish or some other quick breeding, fast growing, non fussy eater.
I also like the idea of sleepy cod,downside is slow growth upside is they breed in captivity and taste delicious.
Takes 2 yearsish to get to the table so it would need another tank of Silver Perch or Jade to keep coming quicker.
Plenty of veg while your waiting though.

Just wondering if TSHTF in a PO kind of way how long would it take for wild fish stocks to replenish?
... after WW11 with no fishing during most of the war, the catch increased by upto 300% in some places.

You may would need a wharf, a pier or a sailing/row boat though.
Around here it would kill tourism and every tourist has a boat, so there would be plenty for the locals straight from the beach or river.

[Moe]

heaps of people are doing Tilapia in QLD with great success... when the stuff does hit the fan, i doubt laws will be followed. Tilapia and carp are here to stay, unless you want to drain all the rivers in Australia LOL good luck.

Aussie fish are great, they are just difficult to breed... im doing work experience on a fish farm in SE Queensland at the moment. They inject them with hormones to induce spawning. It can be hit and miss, fish can die.

Im doing trout at the moment but i've been trying to catch some carp to expariment with. I'll experiment with lucerne/carp (amongst other foods) in the A.P. system and see how that goes.

Once commercial trawling becomes unviable to do on a mass scale and only the wealthy can eat such fish, fish stocks will replenish. I wonder if we'll loose tuna for good... I know they're stocking up in giant freezers as they think they'll get fished out, then sell at a later date as an extinct food to the wealthy. sad world.

[Pakanohida]

Ah yeah thats growing power in Milwaukee. They're actually fairly close to a residential area.
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en...-8&sa=N&tab=wl

As is this project which i did some volunteer work on...
http://www.ceres.org.au/greentech/aquaponics

im talking about people trying to do broad acre aquaponics as they do with wheat or sugar cane here in Australia. Then sending it hundreds of kilometers. Which is good so aquaponics not only forces you to do organic (cant use biocides or fish die) it also forces you to go local.

That is certainly large scale!