Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am new to aquaponics and setting up my first enviroment here in North Central Texas. I have seen fry/fingerlings around the docks on some of our local lakes and wonder if they would be candidates for a system? Know they are probably blue-gill or some perch family, but don't know for sure. Any advice?

Provided that your state will allow you to take them home alive for this purpose then most of the sunfish family will probably work in AP (not all will get large enough to eat though). I have had some Bluegill in my AP system for a few years and they are eating size but haven't tried any yet. You could probably get them to eating size in a couple of years, it took more like three years here but they were pretty small when I started and I have cooler water temps (Bluegill aren't known for being fast growers though). I'm still hoping to see if mine will breed in the system. You can feed them a pretty wide variety of food as you probably already know and they will take commercial fish food if you're inclined to use it. They prefer the sinking chow most of the time but they'll probably go for either when the water is warm.

If you want faster growth, catfish might be a better choice but the two can be in the same tank as long as the size difference isn't too much.

Thanks Scotty - I've lived in the Midwest for about 25 years and never eaten Catfish. Grew up on the West Coast where Seafood is fresh and that probably jaded me. I did visit an Asian market yesterday, that a friend suggested and I smelled that 'ocean' smell with the fish, not the Ammonia from most others.

guess I need to consider fresh catfish.