I am trying to find out information about trout farming and farming of other types of fish. My husband and I are looking at purchasing a homestead in Kentucky that is surrounded by a river and has 2 large ponds on property. With all the water resources that are present I am curious if we could expand by raising fish as a unique protein to add to the freezer. We are avid trout lovers so we would pref raising trout over other species. If anyone has info on raising trout in ponds let me know! Thanks all!!
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Trout need moving, clean, oxygenated water, so unless you have a spring or stream leading into the ponds probably a no go, tilapia is used alot in aquaculture so you might have better luck with them, i wouldnt bother stocking the river, everything would move downstream unless you used a net pen and if you get caught stocking non native species the epa/fish and gamr would be all over you.
This is according to my husband that worked a commercial hatchery for several years, not a google search for what its worth
Agreed Main homestead mom. For trout the water temp needs to be pretty cool and if it isn't spring fed with a good flow rate your water temp will be too high. I am about to do a cost/benefit analysis on raising trout in an aquaponics setup. I will have to keep the water cooled with refrigeration (I'm an ex hvac guy) but hope to be able to have enough fish to service the plants and possibly sell to. Worried about the cost as I live in Missouri...IT'S HOT! :)
Lol do all hvac guys secretly love fish farming? My husband does hvac too 😂 he loved the hatchery but it definitely didnt pay the bills like hvac... As you'd imagine i have the opposite problem of having to keep the water from freezing up here for a large aquaponics set up, we did have a cherry tomato growing out of a resevoir on our fish tank for a couple years with a simple bell syphon, it got 20' long before we had to cut it down
Wow! I just like fish and trout is guudd eatin! You could probably build a solar heater for cheap and keep the water warm enough through the winter months just with thermosiphoning.....just a thought. Even if I wanted to do Tilapia I'd have to do something about the water temp as about 80* I'm told is where they start having issues.
Thanks guys! The ponds are both fed by individual springs although I’m uncertain ab their temps or oxygen saturation levels so that’s definitely something I’m going to have to look into once we move if purchase is finalized. I am still hopeful that we can utilize the ponds for trout since they are spring fed. In the event we need to though an aqua ponies system sounds like an easier way to raise them as far as temperatures are concerned but to be hones I have no clue how to set up let alone operate a system like that so I’ll be praying to Yah the ponds will work for us! And yes, trout are some darn good eats!!