Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm looking for a source for some fingerlings. I've only been able to find two so far. One of them was destroyed by a fire a few years ago. Yes, the fish farm caught fire. Irony? Unfortunately, they have no plans to rebuild due to heavy regulation of commercial projects.

The other is simply out of stock for the year. Anyone know of any BYAPers that may have?

Are you sure you want tilapia in New England? If the system is indoors it would work, but there are other fish better suited for your climate.

if you're building indoors, you can keep them year round, but an outdoor system would have to be heated to keep tilapia alive..kellen, a member on this site, sells and ships tilapia all over the us..(http://tilapiasource.com/zc/) - he's got a great reputation
if it's an outdoor system, i'd look for local pond stockers to see what grows best in your climate

Totally indoors so temp isn't a major concern. Already taken over a corner of the basement, insulated the grow bed room and started experimenting with an auto overflow dumping into a swirl filter so I don't have to drill a 150g tank and learned how to overdrive a fluorescent fixture. I HAVE discovered that the pump that I have simply isn't going to cut it - free isn't always good . BARELY handled a 50' run of hose with all of 2' of lift so I'm probably going to go with a submersible in my sump to take advantage of any heat transfer. Basement usually stays 65-70* year round so I'm hoping the tank won't need much insulating.

Figured I'd check around locally, first, as overnight shipping is what usually kills deals. Fortunately, I've got some time as I'm redesigning the grow bed due to a liner failure so I'll still have to cycle up after re-build. So I'm a good month or so away from fish but figured I'd start throwing feelers out now.

A 50' run is long. Do another mockup, but built how you actually plan on setting up your system. You may find that free works.

I definitely will double check the pump. Was just using it to drain the grow bed via sump to the outside hence the garden hose. Come to think of it, what's standard length on a garden hose... 25'?

System design currently calls for all of a 4' max horizontal run through 1" PVC and then to a 4' vertical lift through the same from sump to FT. Not much I can do to get around the 4' head but I may be able to shorten the horizontal run... I have to find a larger capacity sump solution so I may just gang 2 or 3 storage bins together via uniseals.

I'll have pics once the grow bed is re-done....

On something as narrow as a garden hose, most of the pump's power is being eaten up by friction over the course of 25 feet. You might be able to find specs on the pump online to see how much of a head it can take and what type of flow rate you can expect at 4 feet.

Hi,

I'm in NH too; nice to see you. I've not been able to find tilapia and have gone with rainbow trout from Hy-on-a-hill trout farm. He was very nice and is still open.

Good luck,

David

Hi David,

I've been contemplating several options as tilapia seem to be scarce around here. Trout seem to be landing at the top of the list. What's your experience with them as far as temps, availability of food and reproduction, if any?

I've been running my rainbows at about 55 and I have heard that they like 55-65. Can your basement be made slightly cooler? Or you could try brown trout which like 65-75, but they have much slower growth rates. As to food, I bought mine at Hy-On-A-Hill; you could do a worm bin as a supplement. I haven't heard of anyone on the forum breeding trout and mine aren't old enough anyway. http://nhaquaculture.com/pubframe.html seems to be a good place to get info about suppliers.

David