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I have heard that catfish (and perhaps other fish too) eat about anything. Would catfish also eat my organic waste? If so I could breed catfish in aquaponics.

So can my waste be turned into fish-food? Can I use any organic waste? How should I process it before feeding it to the fish?

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  • 2
    As a side note. You can put a compost pipe in the middle of your grow beds. A 6" pipe for example perforated at the end that is submerged in the grow bed. Worms will go into the pipe during flood cycles and break down the organic waste. Then during drain cycles they will go into the substrate of the grow bed and continue spreading their goodness. The power of worms in AP is awesome! Feb 1, 2013 at 16:34
  • @AndrewSiemer This would be a great answer
    – HelloW
    Feb 2, 2013 at 14:59
  • Could we use vegetable compost to feed fishes If so how much quantity have to be given to 1ht Thank you
    – Malathi
    Jul 8, 2021 at 8:03

5 Answers 5

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Some experience with this. You won't get a yes/no answer.

In general many omnivorous fish (carp, catfish) will eat lots of things but they may not be able to chew or bite with much force. This limits what they can eat. Additionally some can be somewhat picky eaters. Here are some suggestions I have found helpful:

  1. Unless it is really easy to chew (think leafy greens here) it is worth chopping it up finely

  2. Introduce the fish to a new food a little at a time and watch their reaction. If the food is not eaten it will decay and foul the water as well as pull oxygen from it. You don't want that. You should be able to figure out quickly what they will eat and what they won't or can't.

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    Apologies for not selecting your answer for nearly 10 years. May 27, 2022 at 12:43
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The different organic waste should be tested, one by one, feeding them to the fish in small quantities and processing it before to have it edible by the fsh (maybe dedicate an old blender to pre-chew it).

Other direction would be to compost it and use them in an other beneficial way.

The solution of the compost tower in the middle of grow beds is a good one though it comes with other issues such as :

  • potential increase in nitrates in the water (it will all depends on grow beds total volume)
  • organic matter coming in the grow beds and potentially clogging it

An alternative solution would be to get a worms or a BSF-larvae composting bin that would produce compost for your other grow beds (the traditional ones, not the aquaponics ones) then find a way to gather the worms or BSF larvae to feed them to the fish.

Also, for the non-organic food waste (left over of meat, eggs, bread,...) I wonder whether it would be suitable to feed the fish too (given it would be "pre-chewed" too), tilapias and catfish are omnivorous, they can eat meat (what about the cooked one?). Those won't be OK for composting.

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  • It would be possible to have the mature BSF-larvae to fall into the fish tank when they are on their way to find dry place to change to fly.
    – Memes
    Oct 1, 2014 at 6:25
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You can put a compost pipe in the middle of your grow beds. A 6" pipe for example perforated at the end that is submerged in the grow bed. Worms will go into the pipe during flood cycles and break down the organic waste. Then during drain cycles they will go into the substrate of the grow bed and continue spreading their goodness. The power of worms in AP is awesome!

Read here: http://www.ecofilms.com.au/how-to-build-a-worm-tower/

Sample worm tower

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  • Interesting... but wouldn't this approach mean a high quantity of nitrates and other organic compounds getting into the water? I realise 'some' is good, but getting the balance right with the fish and other plants might be tricky - any thoughts? Feb 5, 2013 at 18:26
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One other approach would be to breed maggots and feed those to the fisk. This is done commercially with blood worms and other species. They are also fed to chickens.

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Yes.

See this (Salmon have effectively survived on Black Soldier Fly Larvae) :

https://thefishsite.com/articles/feed-trial-successfully-replaces-fishmeal-with-black-soldier-fly-larvae-for-farmed-atlantic-salmon

And this (biowaste can be turned into fish or plant food using this scaleable system) :

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/sourcing/tech-startup-better-origin-launches-ai-insect-farm-to-convert-waste-into-feed/645796.article

It works by converting inputs such as agricultural residues into insect larvae, which can then be fed to livestock

Such insects of their larvae can be turned into fish food.

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