Raising Fish In A Barrel

by Stowe Boyd

Years ago, I visited a friend's home in Amherst MA (I was an undergraduate at the time), and he was raising a fish -- I think it was a carp -- in a ceramic jar on his back porch. His parents -- who were from China -- had always done so, he told me. He said that he fed it table scraps, and things like stale bread. Whenever the fish would get too big for the (approximately 5 gallon) jar, he would cook it for supper, which is exactly what we did that evening, with a delicious black bean, garlic, and chili sauce.

It recently occurred to me that I had never encountered anyone else who was involved in this tiny scale aquaculture. But I have picked up threads here and there, that it was a commonplace in earlier times. American farmers have often grown catfish in unused watering troughs, especially those that are stream-fed, or in rain barrels.

I came across the reprint of a larger-scale experience of raising catfish in 55 gallon barrels, principally fed worms: Raising Catfish In A Barrel.

The take aways:

• Earthworms seem to be a near-perfect food for catfish.
• The Mahans -- the couple involved in the aquaculture -- siad that the entire apparatus they used cost about $15 in 1970s money, and required only 12 square feet of space.
• The used a commercial aquarium bubbler to oxygenate the water.
• Tap water -- if fluoridated -- must be left in the sunlight, exposed to the open air, for a day prior to being moved into the fish tanks. (Note: reuse of rainwater, which is what my college pal used, avoids this problem.)
• The Mahans managed 40 fish in each 55 gallon tank. They were introduced as fingerlings, and were harvested when grown, but other measurements weren't taken.
• Catfish convert about 85% of what they eat into meat, and a one pound fish yields about 10 ounces of meat.

The Mahons were in the business of raising worms, so they had an inexhaustible supply of worms handy. But my friend -- who lived with two other college kids -- harvested a fish every few months in the warmer parts of the year, just from table scraps and day old bread. And no bubbler.

Of course, you could just build in a more traditional koi pond, stock it with carp or catfish, and pull them out for dinner when they get large enough, too.

fish pond with barrel garden for filter, originally uploaded by cskk.

I found this setup on Flickr, which uses a barrel of plants, with the bottom half filled with sand and gravel, as a water filter for the fish pond.

There's a lot of room for experimentation with small-scale aquaculture. I'm going to try the 'carp in a jar' approach following my return from an East Coast trip in late August. Photo journal to follow.

Comments

[gregorylent]

somehow the images generated by reading this story did not make me hungry for barrel grown fish, sort of the opposite.. :-)

[Steve]

Wait until the sh!t hits the fan with the coming dollar collapse. You'll change your mind.