Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Kellen has some advertised right now, mossambique I think, that the males and females grow at similar rates. Also, the last list I saw from Fish and Game did not include mossambique as restricted

For my next system, I am going for trout, since the ground temp is average around 64F all year. I figured, they are fun to watch and i wont have to worry about heating in winter vs cooling in summer if i dig my tank deep enough into the ground.

This tank will have a few tilipa, and such small numbers i am just going to get a few from a local church. Not even going to bother with F/G.

Ronmaggi, do you have contact information for the seller? I am having a hard time finding any thing local in OC to buy tilapia.

green lady hydroponics in the ocean beach neighborhood of San Diego sold them. I do not know if they are still in business. When I last spoke to the owner he did not seem interested in keeping the shop open, as he was getting a lot of heat from federal investigators. Apparently, his customers were getting there doors kicked in and such. I made a mental note to pay cash for the fingerlings, though, I have not bought any yet.

In regards to green lady hydroponics, their website expired last month. They seemed to have good reviews when Google. I have talked with a local hydro shop, they have to be VERY careful about what they say to customers, and what they allow their customers talk about. Other wise the feds can act.

I have heard of stores getting raided at GUN POINT by feds because they were selling raw milk. Very weird times we are living in.

The end times are near when everything that appears to be right is illegal, and everything that appears to be wrong is legal.

Too true! When I was growing up marijuana was everywhere, and I never touched the stuff. The last thing I want is to be associated with the stuff, just because I want to reduce the distance the food I eat has to go to reach my table! Thomas Jefferson must be rolling in his grave when Americans can't have the choice as to wether their milk is pasteurized.

Perhaps a SoCal tilapia co-op could be developed. They apparently bread like mad if left unchecked. If we shared fingerlings, we could make sure everyone always had the tilapia they need. That way we would not have to worry about the reprocusions of dealing with a hydro shop, and would make it easier for folks here to grow their food in a water wise maner.

For how cheap fingerlings are, a co-op would be great since shipping/transporting them would cost more then the fingerlings them self. A central group that can work on keeping every thing legal and up to date for laws and information. Since the fish are given away, we wouldn't need a license to sell?

I think that if it is a co-op, and really that is just a bunch of friends sharing stuff, you wouldn't. I think I remember reading that you can sell live fish without a license too. You only need a USDA inspected facility to sell dead stuff. I'm not interested in selling the fingerlings, I would rather find a good AP home for them. I think that it would work like a seed exchange, which would be pretty cool to start up here too. Part of the reason I am getting into AP is so I could start banking seeds. If we purposely stressed some heirloom seeds, we would end up with some pretty AP hardy plants. Seed Savers has a lot of info about that, but they are mostly interested in preserving ALL of the genetic diversity of a plant, and AP by virtue of not being most plants native environment would surely select out the genes not suited for AP. As such, any seeds selected from the best performing plants would be adapted after 2 or 3 generations, and would need to be marked as such. Good for our purposes though!

I like your thinking, we will defiantly have to work sharing seeds. I have bags of heirloom seeds, that i am waiting for an established system to plant them in.

Hi everyone, I'm a little late to the party but I'm also from Orange County. Cypress to be more exact. I have been putting off purchasing fish because I have been so uncertain about so many things. The climate in my area is right in between what is ideal for either cold water or warm water fish. I've given up on doing tilapia over the winter and I will do trout next winter, but for the summer I'm thinking tilapia.

Do any of you guys know what the requirement for the permits are? I saw that the application is about $750 and that is just not worth it for a home system... I'm wondering if anyone knows of any waivers or discounts for non-commercial systems (or maybe even if they aren't necessary?). Does anyone also know of any sources in California for tilapia and trout?

Oops I forgot to mention I remember a member told me that the Mozambique species was allowed without a permit in Southern California. But I would like to have Blue Tilapia as I believe they are the most resistant to cold.

Steve,

The 750 is for an aquaculture permit. You don't need it for a home system. In fact, you don't need any permits unless you plan on selling the fish. If you want to sell fish then you need an aqauculture permit.
If you have a backyard closed system you really don't need any permits. It's just a big aquarium in the backyard. In your area of California most Tilpapia are allowed. You can go to the CA DFG website and under aquaculture there is a list of restricted species. Sorry, I don't have the link right now.

Todd
Central CA

Steve,

Also check out Kellen at White Brook Tilapia Farm. Great guy with lots of Tilapia knowledge. I think he's on this forum as well.

Todd

Found the link to CA DFG

http://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx? ... nline=true