Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I don't think Florida Fish Farms has tilapia. They have fish for pond stocking as well as koi. But no Tilapia that I know of. There are plenty of places that ship tilapia but they are rather over rated if you are doing aquaponics in a cooler climate. Bluegill or channel catfish will allow you to grow more veggies even when the water is cooler than 70 F.

The flip side is that it will get raging hot here by the end of May. Is there a good "year round" fish for my climate or a strategy for alternating types of fish?

Some threads that will answer that are TCLynx's system, and Faye's system. TCLynx runs the same fish year round in a mostly hot climate, but she finds that it is too cold for tilapia some times. Faye has the longest running thread here, she alternates fish.

Dave-Would you mind sharing your FL supplier contact info with me? I've been calling around and everyone wants a much larger min. order than I can handle and sadly nobody supplies here in MD.

Hey suziq:
The linked thread below documents where the tilapia I had came from and difficulties thereof. Some went from Janet to GotFish, thence to Karen Swanberg. Mine are all gone but they bred like crazy so once you get some you won't need to buy more.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=935&hilit=tilapia+for+us


BTW you could possibly drive to WV and pick up pond fish here, I got catfish, minnows, daphnia, and bluegill that way:
http://www.zettsfishhatchery.com/id1.html

I ordered 8 tilapia fingerlings from Whiskers catfish farm and when I picked them up at a farm co-op
the generous fish farmer had filled my plastic bag with 35 fish. AS I currently have only about 100 gallons
of aaquarium capacity I would donate a dozen fish to a Nashville neighbor fish enthusiast

I decided to try bluegill over the winter, since my system is outdoor (got them from http://www.fishwagon.com/). I'd love to take you up on the offer, but I think I'm already on the road to overstocked (20 fingerlings in a 50 gal tank). Guess I'll have to expand as soon as it warms up. My system is here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14082

I wouldn't mind networking with a local AP enthusiast, at the very least. I'll send you a PM.

would like to meet local AP people also,
strength in numbers, collaboration brainstorming, trade have you heard about the World Aquaculture Conference that will
be held in Nashville this February fish professionals from all over the planet are going to share wizardry

That looks pretty epic. The trade floor passes look pretty reasonable.