Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Kevin, I was all over the Cherry Snapper site maybe 6 months ago. I got all excited about the hybridization, too. However, I haven't seen any documented cases of people using his breeders. I'd like to see the results from a third party.

I was all over the Cherry Snapper site as well and perhaps I am too small of a cliente to deal with, but as Janet points out (and I agree) I have come up short on research or third party confirmation that cross breeding certain strains will reliably and consistently achieve predominantly male populations that are not weak.

He is very approachable, I called him up and spoke with him about it. I think he would be happy to put you in contact with some of the customers for reference sake.

Mike,
I have finally found some reasonable information on the Pacu. They do not seem to be so hard to breed after all. As for the ornamental issue...? As for a food fish, they grow to 2.5 lbs in a year, this is considered avg. growth.

I found a dealer/breeder who says he also raises the Tilapia and the Basa Catfish, and the Tilapia was his least favorite and only raises them because there is a reasonable market.

Both the Pacu and the Basa grow out the first 2 -3 years at the the same approx. rate (2-2.5 lbs/year) and according to them, the meat is much more favorable. No spines like the Tilapia either, and easier to work with.

thought you might enjoy the pic., this is from a Brazilian meat/fish market

ok, so the fish is only slightly bigger than a tilapia, and the guy holding it is tiny!


Matthew,
The dealer/breeder you found, what part of the country/world is he in?

I'm really going to have to spend some time researching various fin fish options and specifically the Pacu.

They are in P.R.

I will have to have a large shipment made to help keep the cost of the freight down. Large, like 1000 fish. This is cool, imagine 1000 these swimming around in your swimming pool while you stand on the diving board waiting for a clear shot to jump in.

Well, maybe I don't need 1000 just yet, so, I will start taking names to see who all might want to split the order. This guy has the Pacu, Basa Cats, Tilapia, and Macrobrachium Rosenbergi prawns. The order can be mixed, all wholesale.

I don't have together all the #'s yet. It will take a bit to gather all the info. for the shipping.

We've gotten basa from our grocery store and my wife loved it. Can we start a new thread on them?

Mathew that is good news. Can you get more specifics on breeding Pacu? I would like to know if they substrate spawn and what behavior they exhibit before spawning? I'd be interested in ordering fingerlings.

do pacu go by any other name in the aquarium trade?

post your breeding info on the forum if you can, i'm interested

Crap thats a big fish!

I may be interested in joining the order. Where abouts are you located geographically? Trying to figure out what the customs port would be. Do you have your importers license?

Rass,
I do not have a license, however, that is rarely an issue and can be taken care of easily. He talked about shipping them by regular air freight/air lines, much cheaper than other routes.

Steve,
this is the Red Bellied Pacu', it is sometimes called Tambaqui (mostly in Brazil though), I do believe there are other names, but I don't know them.

Micheal,
I am limited on my knowledge, just starting to learn, however, the guy I spoke to made it out to be realatively simple and certainly no rocket science. They seem to go through the whole process except for the actual dropping of the eggs, naturally. I know some don't like this, but, in order to get them to drop the eggs in anything smaller than the Amazon River, they have had to give them a bit of hormone. According to him and someothers, they seem be relatively easy to handle and show signs of carrying the eggs. Once they drop the eggs, the milt from the male is lightly squezed out of them and then mixed for a few minutes. The process takes very little time to prove successful and will have a large number of swimmers in a very short while. Many thousands of them. There in, it does not need to be done very often, and the success rate seems to be high.

The Basa seem to be nearly identical in their requirements, by the way.

This is ofcourse very basic and general. I am still digging and working on it. I will up date as I have good info.

Question about Tilapia pricing... out of curiosity, what is the market value for them? I happened to see frozen whole cleaned Tilapia in the grocery store today and they were $1.54/pound! I can't imagine making any money at that retail price.

Money-wise, I don't think you can beat $1.54 a pound. However, I look at this from the point that the fish in the grocery were probably raised in China, using practices that damage the environment, and were fed foods with antibiotics and other stuff they (and I) don't need. I also know for a fact that the ones from my tank taste so much better than the ones in the grocery.

I agree that I would much rather eat products I grow/raise than imported from China with the complete unknown as to what's REALLY in it!