Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding tree hugger? tin foil hat? fish food...

Ewest, most of the fish served in restaurants in Florida is imported. They did an expose on grouper and found that 85% was fake. When I get to go down there I get the basa which many people think is grouper but is catfish from Vietnam.

To provide fish for the food market raising most fish species in other than intensive recirculating systems, where the environment can be controlled, fish can be grown close to markets, and you use up to 99 percent less water than other methods, is inefficient due to seasonal and sporadic harvests in outdoor systems. And some people just don't have the gray matter in between their ears to fully understand recirc concepts and how to manage them.

Catfish farming isn't as profitable as it used to. Some catfish farmers even went out of business. It didn't help Vietnam was dumping their catfish look a like on the market and our congress critters had to be slapped up side the head to pay attention and do something about it.

False labeling of fish is a really big problem in this country and not much is being done about it.

Indeed,
Grouper sandwich for $4.99, it probably not grouper........
I owned a seafood market at one point in my life. You would be really supprized about alot. "fresh" means not frozen , thats all....
Fresh Mahi Mahi, imported into Miami from south america someplace.
That fish is 10 days old before it even hits the local distributor.

Yes it is from non-US sources - several lawsuits and gov intervention on that WRT catfish. But I am talking about fresh fish (whole or half) on ice not boxed or frozen. Much of ours comes from trucks direct from the gulf coast (100 miles away). The grocery stores here are good about labeling.

Ewest, at Port Charlotte, most of the fish is imported. The fresh dolphin and grouper come from South America. I had a friend that was a commerical fisher and he said they didn't supply 10% of the fresh fish. To much demand and not enough fish. Sometimes I would go out with him but it looked like a tough way to make a living. He quit about 5 years ago.

One can go to the MS Gulf Coast docks and watch the fish unloaded from the local fishing boats onto the trucks to go to our area and places like New Orleans etc. BTW I have no idea what the difference is between a grouper caught 50 miles off the MS coast and one caught from the Gulf 50 miles north of the South American coast or 50 miles west of the Florida coast. They are all fresh caught and put on ice. Are 2 of them US and one foreign ? None of the 3 are farm raised (aquaculture). What about 3 dolphin , one from Chandelier islands LA one from the Florida keys and one off the Mexican east coast? 2 US and 1 foreign ? The one from Mexico is closer to me than the one from the Fla keys.

I don't buy any fish in Fl. as I catch a few off my boat dock each time down there. If I did, I would go to the docks and buy them from the fishermen. There may be many more fish in thar part of the gulf then my area.I sure hope so!!!

Got it.

Ewest, I was in a Safeway Inter. this evening getting some shrimp steamed. Anyway plenty of time to check out all the seafood. This is a store that is closest to a subdivision that has over 8000 houses. The cheapest one cost over 500,000. The store is big time on organic food and has a huge seafood section. The only seafood that was from the ole USA was sea scallops. the seafood looked fine,it just was not from here. This store is in northern VA. and most of the people work in D.C.

I live in a fishing town turned tourist area,fifteen years ago when you went to the fish market they sold stuff that was caught here for the most part.These days other then scallops it is almost all brought in unless you know where to go and buying off the boats these days is not exactly legal either.99% of what is caught here,gets loaded on trucks to NYC or Philadelphia.

Back to the original post,I wanted to do cage culture in my pond and market the fish locally under the Jersey Fresh program we have here and eventually hopefully will.In all the research I did with feeds and product safety it lead me to believe fed fish tend to be a bit safer to eat in MY case.My conclusion was with quality feed you can get a fat fish that has had less time exposed to toxins in its environment than through natural foraging.

Saw something on CNN today.91% of the seafood that we consume is imported. They said that 35% was labeled falsely but how would they know? This is why I buy no fish and eat it in only one restaurant.

This points directly to my recent post about supporting the Indiana Aquaculture Association Conference and other related groups: Support State and Regional Aquaculture Associations.

Like KenC, our family does not buy supermarket fish. For most seafood, we only buy directly from the source, or maybe one supplier removed from the source. Thankfully, being involved with research and commercial mid-Atlantic aquaculture through the West Virginia Aquaculture Association, we know where to get safe and local seafood and fish -- although about 99% of our aquaculture products comes from our ponds, or waters we manage and work with very closely.

US farmed fish, and US fisheries products, are extremely safe and healthy.

Ken G.

Glad I live where I can get fresh fish from the gulf. Not much problem with foreign fish here. I take reports from CNN and the Commence Dept with a large dose of salt - (not just a grain).

Whoa! Who checks their green cards?

How do you know they didn't sneak in, underwater and undetected, from some Caribbean, Central American, or South American beach area?

The boats are in Gulfport MS. The fish are fresh. The fish truck operator I have know for 30 years. I have friends on the coast that are fishermen.

Tell me is there a differenc between 2 of the same species both from the Gulf one inside US waters and one a mile further out ?

BTW I don't need to check green cards ! Do you?

The value of the catfish crop in Mississippi, in accord with its acreage, reported the greatest value (approximately $243 million in 2003). MS has about 100,000 acres of catfish ponds. We have plenty of local catfish - grown - processed , packaged and sold here. The companies and farms are locally owned.

I love the Gulf shrimp but they do not sellit here. There hasn't been any U.S.A. catfish in the stores here in years. The other stuff is cheaper.

I hear you kenc. I am well aware of the problems most everywhere else. The MS/US catfish farmers have been trying to get the Commerce Dept to have truth in labeling action against the Vietnamese/Chinese fake catfish. At least that way people will know what they are buying.

The catfish is labeled correctly here. It is either basa or swai.

Here you go

Do they sell all they produce to restarants? Is it much more expensive then the imported? We all need to buy American when we can.

That is a marketing deal. There are a lot of producers who sell. One is Delta Pride who sells all over the place ie Sams , Walmart etc.

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/delta-pride-farm-raised-catfish-fillets-15-lbs/156489.ip

I was curious as to the price but could not get the price to pull up. Does anyone know?