Spent grain for food?

[FloridaChris]

Hey guys,
First post on this forum. Mainly stalked BackyardAP, but hoping to find some same continent help and maybe even some local advice (Florida). About to make the jump into AP. Picking up my barrels tomorrow, my pump is in the mail, and checking HD for grow medium tomorrow. Quick question, can fish eat and properly digest spent grain? I brew my own beer and was wondering if I could kill 2 birds with one stone by feeding them the spent grain. I currently trade them with a farmer for chicken eggs. I wish I could just have my own chickens, but I'm not zoned... bunch of bs. Anyways, thanks in advance for the advice.

Regards,
Chris

[JCO]

Welcome to the forum...pull up an easy chair and relax. As for the grain idea, fish are not grain eaters per sey. Companies do put corn in a lot of fish food but that is only to make it float; additionally it is very fattening for the fish. Try putting the grain in a vermiculture (worm bed) and feed the worms to the fish.

[FloridaChris]

I will have to look into that. I was originally thinking of just doing goldfish for the FT, as I am not planning on eating the fish only looking to use them as a organic fertilizer. Would goldfish eat earthworms??

[JCO]

Goldfish will work just fine and they will eat worms with no problem.

[bbikebbs]

Goldfish will work just fine and they will eat worms with no problem.

It's what I started my system with. I bought the "feeder" kind from one of the big box pet stores for $0.27 each. I would even get a $3 coupon for taking their online survey and got a bunch free. I also started a warm farm and have been feeding the blue gills from it. The gold fish will be too slow to get the first worms of the day but when the blue gills slow down, they finally get theirs.

[FloridaChris]

I was planning to get the same type of feeder fish to start off with. How many do you think I need for 2 GB's and a 45-50 gallon fish tank? Did you just catch the bluegills yourself or did you purchase them somewhere?

When introducing the fish to the system, I saw you put the bags in the water first so the temp/pressure fluctuations doesn't mess with them to much. Is there anything else I should be doing when introducing these fish to the system?

[keith_r]

after you've had the bag in the tank for a bit and the temps are about equal, put a cup of the tank water in with the fish..wait a few and do it again..
i "salt dip" before putting into my tank, i'd especially recommend this if you are bringing fish in "from the wild" - a salt water dip (35ppt - sea water strength) will kill parasites

[bbikebbs]

I was planning to get the same type of feeder fish to start off with. How many do you think I need for 2 GB's and a 45-50 gallon fish tank? Did you just catch the bluegills yourself or did you purchase them somewhere?

When introducing the fish to the system, I saw you put the bags in the water first so the temp/pressure fluctuations doesn't mess with them to much. Is there anything else I should be doing when introducing these fish to the system?

I had friends give me two full grown blue gills that they caught. They were eating the gold fish so I had to get rid of them. I eventually bought 1"-2" ones. They play nice with the gold fish now!

[FloridaChris]

keith_r - You care to explain a little more about this salt dip? I am definitely going to put mosquito fish in my system, as I live right on Tampa Bay and we have a monster mosquito problem any month the doesn't stay below 70 degrees consistently, which is pretty much 11 months a year!

[keith_r]

i learned it from an aquaculture guy,, whenever he brings fish into his RAS system from his ponds, he has a bucket of salt water - don't uses table salt, or salt with anti-caking agents, aquarium salt is too expensive, you can get "pure" salt from pool suppliers/hardware stores (pool salt)
after bringing the water the fish are in to about the same temp as the tank, net the fish out, put them in the salt water bucket (35ppt), and within a minute or two the fish will seem to flounder, thats when you pull it out and put it in your ft..
the salt water (this is my understanding) causes parasites to basically explode..