New Hampshire Underground

Mulling around the idea of fish farming at Hoyt.  This is what I did in the peace corps, and I enjoyed it.  The other day it occurred to me that there's already a pond here, which might require only small modifications to go into fish production.  Was wondering how much interest there'd be in the fish raised, or being able to come out and fish in the pond (not too challenging, but fun for kids).

I don't see fish pedicure on the list.

heh, I hadn't thought of that.

I tried that at Nick Gillespie's house. Killed all his fish :'(

Can I use a Dupont Spinner lure in the pond?

Sure  :P

Cool  >:D

The pond is kind of small. You could only deploy the Dupont Spinner Lure once.

I might buy trout in bulk, but not catfish.  What kind would be in the farm?

I definitely don't want to do trout.  They're too fussy about water temperature and air.  Other possibilities are bass, bluegill, catfish, bull head.

I think it's too cold to raise tilapia here.  On the plus side, NH isn't likely to see any alligators in the fish ponds.  :o

Catfish taste awesome!

Can you use that Dupont Spinner Lure now?  I think my pond needs to be bigger.

You might also be able to consider carp... another thing to do would be to do some testing of the pond to make sure there aren't contaminants you wouldn't want to eat in there before you get too far along in planning. Just a thought! :-)

Quote from: PassionatePantherrr on April 29, 2010, 02:41 PM NHFT
You might also be able to consider carp...

Not if you want to market them to eat.  :lil_alien:

Thanks for the idea, Denise!

I just came across this site with an idea for the aquaponic fish farm.
Agropolis (http://agropolisfarm.com/)

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09-02-it-almost-cant-get-more-local-than-growing-at-the-grocery-store/ (http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09-02-it-almost-cant-get-more-local-than-growing-at-the-grocery-store/)

As far as the fishing part...

There was this one place close to where I lived back in Iowa called Lunker Land.  It was three small ponds.  In one pond they had catfish, in another pond they had bass and I believe they had trout in the third.  You'd go there, fish and you could keep whatever you caught and paid by the pound. 

I found this that might be helpful. 
http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/pondmanagement/stocking.asp (http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/pondmanagement/stocking.asp)

http://nhaquaculture.com/pubframe.html (http://nhaquaculture.com/pubframe.html)

Catfish can be farmed in an incredibly small space. So long as the water is flowing (a recirculating system works fine), they do just fine packed gill-to-gill.

The problem in NH is that catfish don't thrive in lower temperatures. The average daily temp in NH is probably at the lower limits, and is certainly not optimal for growth. That means introducing heat to the system, which means adding overhead costs. Or, you could limit your farm to a basement-size operation.

http://www.cityfarmer.org/fish.html (http://www.cityfarmer.org/fish.html) (I disagree about tilapia, despite its popularity. It's a nasty ugly fish. But if there's a market for it... )
http://www.northescambia.com/?p=8394 (http://www.northescambia.com/?p=8394) (I disagree about clean water and clean taste... wild catfish are the best!)
http://cdserver2.ru.ac.za/cd/catfish/catfish/s40c.htm (http://cdserver2.ru.ac.za/cd/catfish/catfish/s40c.htm)
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2000/09/25/focus6.html (http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2000/09/25/focus6.html)

Just about any fish farming in NH would depend on some source of heat during part of the year.

That's not what all the people actually doing are saying.

What are they raising? I know people raise Trout, but it takes a long time to get them to an edible size.

trout, bass, bluegill, catfish, bull head...websites were discussing the depth the ponds need to be to overwinter the fish in NH.

If ya raise them in ya bath tub, the probably do o-k.

Quote from: Pat K on September 06, 2010, 11:10 PM NHFT
If ya raise them in ya bath tub, the probably do o-k.

Yeah, that second story I linked had a picture of your bathtub...

(http://www.northescambia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/catfish21.jpg)

Ha!  That's an old pic, it's nicely tiled now.
And a swim up bar has been installed.