Opportunities For Small Scale Fish Farming Continue To Expand

Posted: Feb 21, 2011 |Comments: 0 |

Fish farming, also called aquaculture, is one of the fastest growing areas of agriculture in the world. Most farmed fish comes from Asia, and more consumers are worried about the quality and potential hazards from imported farm raised fish. With this, and a growing demand for farm raised fish, there are more opportunities for domestic fish farming.

A major advantage to fish farming is how easy fish are to raise, compared to other animals. Even children commonly raise fish at home in a bowl or aquarium. Many people are discovering that fish farming is not much more difficult than simply scaling up what is done with a common home aquarium.

As a source of meat, fish are known for their health benefits, and they can also be easier to raise than other animals for meat. This is especially true for small scale farmers and back yard growers. Having a heard of cows or pigs in a city yard is just not practical, and in most cases not allowed. But fish are easy to get along with, take up little space, they are low key, and can be very efficient at turning feed into usable protein.

For backyard farmers, small scale fish farming can be a great hobby or even a business. Fish are great in urban areas, since they don't make noise and won't break down the fence and get into the neighbors yard. They also can be grown without a need for fertile soil or sunlight. And a commonly overlooked benefit to fish farming is the wastes the fish produce.


Fish wastes are commonly thought of as being one of the downsides of fish farming. For large commercial operations especially, filtering the water and disposing of the fish wastes can be a big expense. There is also concern about disposing of the water into waterways and causing pollution. But that is only because so many aquaculturists have not yet discovered the value of the fish water and the wastes in it.

Fish release chemicals and effluent into the water that can become toxic to them if it builds up. This is why aquaculture produces so much waste water, to carry the wastes away. The stuff in the water that is not so good for the fish, is great for plants. Fish water is high in the nutrients that plants love. Fish farmers have the privilege to have large supplies of water that is full of organic nutrients that can do an amazing job of growing plants. Unfortunately many of them let it go to waste.

A common way for a small scale home fish farmer to use this fish water is for watering the yard and garden. But a more efficient way to utilize it, is a fast growing form of agriculture called aquaponics. With aquaponics, the water from the fish tank is fed directly to the plants in a hydroponics system. With this system, plants are not grown in soil, but are instead grown directly in the fish water that is fed to them in a grown bed. This gives the plants a constant supply of water and organic nutrients. And the beauty of this system is, the plants, along with friendly bacteria in the system, clean the water so it can be circulated back to the fish tank instead of being wasted. Aquaponics is a very efficient way to grow both fish and organic vegetables, while consuming very little water, and without the need for mechanical filters or adding fertilizer.

Learn more about aquaponics with this aquaponics how to guide. Learn how aquaponics can take a lot of the work and expense out of small scale fish farming, and make it more productive.

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