Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Anyone know where I can buy catfish fingerlings either shipped to Minnesota or close enough that I can take the pickup to get them?

I've heard of people in the South refer to the "fish truck" that comes around that you can just buy them from, but I've never seen/heard of anything similar here in the Upper Midwest.

I have managed to track down this site that sells catfish with $100 min order, but I've got to believe that shipping from California to MN isn't my best bet for getting fish.

http://www.stillwateraqua.com/?cf=pricelist

Not all have catfish, but you have lots of choices...

http://www.mckenzieco.com/species.html
http://www.sprucecreekfish.com/
http://www.minnesotamuskiefarm.com/stoc ... tions.html
http://www.gotwalleyes.com/
http://www.jimfreyfishhatchery.com/index.html

I had seen several of those when I was looking at doing perch or bluegill. The last one does actually have catfish across the border in IA. I'll have to call him about shipping or pickup as well as minimum orders.

I know that you guys that got tilapia from Miami Aquaculture had to order ~150 fish and I wasn't planning on that big of a system initially.

Aquatropics (http://www.aquatropics.com/native_mn.htm) has bullhead catfish fingerlings.

Places that sell locally suitable game fish (bass, blue gill, catfish, etc) are probably less likely to have extreme minimum order requirements. At least that was my impression from the places I called around here. Biggest trick was scheduling when I should show up so that there would be a person around to bag up some fish for me, we still waited around for about 40 minutes while they were down at the ponds harvesting/grading fish. We got 50 fish but I think they would have been just as happy selling us 25 or 200 or whatever.

It will likely also depend on your timing. A place that hatches their own or sells lots of really small fry might be a different situation. The place I went seemed to be more of a grow out farm selling to people with farm ponds.

Hey Jwynia.... Swanberg picked up some the other day.... don't know how close to one another you are...

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