If you want to be self sufficient aquaculture is an efficient way to make sure you have enough to eat. Some fish need very little to eat and can be fed off of scraps and leftovers from other creatures including humans.
The fish wastes are very good for plants and can require less work to keep the plants thriving and healthy.
Aquaculture is still mostly a dream for me. I am in the stage where I got my first aquarium so I can learn how not to kill fish. The idea of killing fish while I learn to do this stuff is no good for me, so I don't even have any fish yet.
The pet store where I bought a few fish items offers free water testing, so I am going to use that to see whether it is safe to risk putting fish in there yet.
The aquarium tank and most of the rest of the equipment were given to me, so that lowers my investment. It is a good thing, because getting going in aquaculture is not going to be cheap to start out.
I guess if you start very small with a glass bowl and one goldfish it could be.
According to a friend who has raised fish professionally, goldfish are not very demanding for the conditions they need to live in.
One goldfish is not going to provide enough plant nutrients to get you very far, however.
Thrift stores in different areas vary, but it is likely that a thrift store near you will sell you an aquarium and perhaps air hoses and filters and bubblers to help lower the cost of getting you started towards aquaculture. If you do that, be sure to clean them very well in case the fish that used to be in there had something contagious.
My aquarium has a bunch of plants as the only live non-microscopic thing in it. This aquarium comes from healthy fish and some of their friendly microorganisms are probably already happy in there. I hope this will make things easier for my fish when I get them.
The pet store sold me some aquatic fish tank kinds of plants by the bunch. I haven't taken them apart yet, but there seem to be 5 or 6 of them. The fish guy for the store told me that the plants I got don't require a lot of light. The light that came with the aquarium was an incandescent and had one bulb out.
Costco (big box store) has 6 packs of daylight compact fluorescent bulbs that fit in the aquarium light holder. That made it even brighter than the store aquariums with only one bulb in there. I was afraid it might hurt the fish or plants with two right off, so now it is only one bulb. The plants seem to like it a lot and are growing at an amazing rate. It is much faster than most dry land plants grow. If my fish like those plants, they are sure to be happy in there.
The motor for the bubbler is loud. I have to turn it off at night to sleep. Articles on the internet say that some brands are especially quiet compared to others.
They are also supposed to last a long time. They are also quite pricey. They probably work out to inexpensive over several years, but they can cause sticker shock. I am not going to post about those, until I feel more confident about my knowledge.
As soon as I learn more and get fish in there, I'll share that with readers. It might save you from making a few mistakes.
I hope all of you have a nice Holiday Season, whatever way you like to celebrate it, or call it.
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