Why Not Start A Fish In The Garden?

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

This question is probably often asked by the happy owners of garden ponds. It's so great to have a real open-air aquarium with big live fish on hand! You can simply admire them, proudly showing your aquatic favorites to guests, or you can also benefit from such an activity - to breed fish for sale or food. How difficult is it?

The most agreeable are tench and crucian carp

For fish farming in a garden plot located in the middle lane, the best suited: carp, peled, trout, gold and silver carp, tench, carp, whitefish. For those who are more southern, we can recommend taming the grass carp, bester and silver carp. Of course, the sizes of reservoirs for this need appropriate.

The most capricious fish are tench and crucian carp. However, unlike other fins, they grow more slowly. If the reservoir is populated optimally, then in four years the golden carp can grow up to 16 cm. with a weight of up to 350g. Moreover, the goldfish grows faster than the goldfish and it multiplies faster, provided that carp or goldfish are adjacent to it.

Lin is a very timid comrade (therefore, it is not so easy to catch him in nature). For him, it is necessary to arrange in advance all kinds of shelters in the form of snags, stones and dense algae. It is also slow in growth - it reaches 200g only for 2-3 years. The carp grows much faster than tench and crucian carp. With good feeding in two years, he can gain up to 500g.

Carp is the most promising

But nevertheless, one of the best and most profitable options for growing fish on a personal plot is the well-known carp. First, it is omnivorous. Both plant and animal feeds are suitable for him. It puts forward few requirements for care, tolerates winter well, begins to feed at +12 C and above. But it grows best in warm water (from +23 C) and in two years it gains up to 500g, and in three - and all 1.5kg.

However, if the site does not have a sufficiently deep reservoir or special conditions for a fish wintering, then full-fledged fish breeding should be abandoned. It is possible to grow several species only during the spring-summer, without leaving them for the winter. To do this, usually immediately after the snow melts in late March-early April, two-year-old carps are purchased 500g. During the season, with good complementary foods and conditions of a clean reservoir, these two-year-olds are able to reach a weight of 1, 5, or even 2 kg by autumn. But with this method ("growing") it is difficult to obtain planting material for further breeding.

Buy or catch?

It will take at least 2-3 years to grow fry, including wintering. You can get them, like adults, in an ordinary natural reservoir, buy at a local fish farm, or even buy them at a store that sells live fish. Stocking of the garden pond usually begins at the beginning of summer. The size of the reservoir is calculated based on the number and size of adults. For example, there will be 2-3 fish per cubic meter of water. If artificial feeding is supposed, then the density of the fish population can be increased.

Winter is not easy

The place for the wintering of fish needs to be thought out in advance. This can be a large home aquarium, a deep well or a garden pond itself, provided that it is deep enough and does not freeze to the bottom. But it is advisable, after the formation of an ice crust (2-3 cm) on the surface of the reservoir, to make a hole and pump out a little water so that an air cavity (15-20 cm high) appears. Then there is a greater chance that the fish will not suffocate. After that, the hole must be closed and insulated so that it does not freeze. It is good to sprinkle the ice with a layer of snow.

Some of the fish farmers prefer to build special concrete wells for wintering fish. Its depth should be at least 2.5m, and its width should be about 80cm. in diameter. From above, the well is covered with a wooden lid. The fish spend there half asleep all winter, because at a temperature of 7-8 C they stop feeding. In the spring she is taken back to the pond. If the fish has been kept outside of its home all winter, then it is necessary to return it back carefully, avoiding a sharp change in temperature, from which it may die.

Menu features

In nature, zoo- and phytoplankton in the form of tiny algae, cyclops, daphnia, etc., plays an important role in the nutrition of the inhabitants of reservoirs, including benthos (benthic organisms similar to bloodworms). Usually the presence of all this in the water is a sure sign that the reservoir is ready for fish farming. But in order to grow these nutrient mixtures for fin, you need to arrange special shallow areas in the reservoir, densely plant them with algae (pond, duckweed, elodea, etc.) and supplement with silt. To increase their number, they are placed in separate basins or baths, in advance with the garden soil poured into the bottom. Due to the fact that the water in small containers heats up faster, plants grow faster.

Very decorative aquatic vegetation - nymphs, calamus, marigold, etc. can also bring benefits. But you should not overdo it with plants - it is quite enough if they occupy one third of the entire area of the pond. In addition to natural food, fish will not refuse artificial feeding. For example, carps and crucians eat well compound feed, cake, boiled potatoes, barley, peas, oatmeal, lupine, etc. Carp and earthworms are well accepted. In this case, you need to give the fish as much food as it really will be eaten, otherwise the leftovers will lead to clogging of the pond. Feeding is usually arranged twice a day - in the morning and in the evening.

Successful fish farming!