Fish Food: What can you feed them?

[FloridaChris]

Hey guys,
So I am planning on picking up tilapia this weekend, as my goldfish aren't getting the job done.

I want to order some food now to have on hand and was wondering if you all could give me some insight on what you use. Some brands I came across a few times were Purina and Premium Fish Food. Premium Fish Food seems to be a botique feed company and would be good for getting me started, but in the long run seems to be a little pricey. I have a local distributor of Purina so I can get it fairly cheap, but I am not sure what type of Purina I need. Hoping on Game Fish, as there is someone on craigslist selling bags for $15 for 50lb bags!

Also, I have read that tilapia eat almost anything. Worms, bugs, algae , etc. Would they eat kitchen produce scraps? Such as a head of lettuce that has wilted, the green tops of carrots, rotten potatoes? Or should those go into the soon to be made worm bin?

[bsfman]

Hey guys,
So I am planning on picking up tilapia this weekend, as my goldfish aren't getting the job done.

I want to order some food now to have on hand and was wondering if you all could give me some insight on what you use. Some brands I came across a few times were Purina and Premium Fish Food. Premium Fish Food seems to be a botique feed company and would be good for getting me started, but in the long run seems to be a little pricey. I have a local distributor of Purina so I can get it fairly cheap, but I am not sure what type of Purina I need. Hoping on Game Fish, as there is someone on craigslist selling bags for $15 for 50lb bags!

Also, I have read that tilapia eat almost anything. Worms, bugs, algae , etc. Would they eat kitchen produce scraps? Such as a head of lettuce that has wilted, the green tops of carrots, rotten potatoes? Or should those go into the soon to be made worm bin?

Cheapest and easiest way is to get a 50 pound sack of floating catfish pellets from your local feed store. They will eat lettuce scraps but it would be difficult to scrounge enough lettuce to sustain them on that diet alone.

[jackalope]

Cut the leafy lettuce scraps up into small shreds, so it will tend to float rather than sink ..... especially if you want to teach them to come to the top for feeding - at first I made the misteak of getting sinking food, pretty soon, they wouldn't feed off the top at all!

I'm not real fond of the commercial fish foods, since they put all kinds of chemical garbage into them for filler - look at the labels and determine how much protein and fat content, as well as drugs, land animal ingredients, etc., are involved so you can make an informed judgement as to what quality of food you will be eating when your AP foods and fish are harvested and therefore avoid the ones that are all junk, drugs and filler. Just consider this: all of those drugs, chemicals, etc., in that fish food are floating around in the same water that provides nutrients for your veggies in the grow bed

Aquafarms Fish Food is no longer in business AFAIK, but their website will give you a lot of info on feeding, as will Jim's Fish Shop - (also out of business AFAIK)
AFFF - Clik
JFS - Clik

Just my 2 centavos ........

[badflash]

I buy Zeigler's Fin Fish Bronze. This is designed for tilapia. Catfish feed is too high in fat for tilapia. I use 3mm floating pellets. I crush these for babies.

There are tons of water plants they will eat that grow locally, but you need to be careful and kill off the free loaders that can contaminate your system. Najas is easy to culture and my tilapia love it. You can set up pools with the tilapia water and shade it if it gets too much sun. They also love string algae, which grows very quickly. Feed anything only as much as they can eat, and turn off your pump while they feed to not clog up the works.

[FloridaChris]

I just bought the Tilapia Growout Kit #2 from Premium Fish Food to get me started. Also, I just ordered 30 fingerlings from a local aquaponic farm. How long should I expect 15.5 lbs to last me with 30 fingerlings?

TILAPIA COMBO KIT #2
1.5 pounds Tilapia PowerStart Fingerling Crumble
3 pounds Tilapia Fingerling Pellet
3 pounds Tilapia Intermediate Pellet
8 pounds Tilapia Ultimate Growout Pellet

I mentioned the green scrapes are just supplemental food for the fish, not full time feed.

For "quality" fish food, everything seems about $1/pound. Whether it be Premium Fish food, Zeiglers, or Purina. Purina, I know I can get locally and save me the $$ on S/H. Paid $15 for 15.5lbs to be shipped to me for that starter batch of feed! Was just hoping someone had some experience with Purina feed.

[badflash]

A long time. You only need to feed fingerlings about 3-4% of their weight per day, and adults only need about 2%. Don't overfeed.