Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Take an air-pump and airstones if you can.

That's awesome Ellie! Be sure to keep us informed & post pics when you get them.

dgrd

If getting them that large, you will get instant amonia in larger quantities, be ready with water for water changes. 55 Gallons is a relatively small amount of water and you can experience large reading changes when introducing fish. But then you are most likely aware of that. Above all, have fun. Do you have your own thread in the members section to post pics?

Thanks for the replies. They came double bagged in a heavy duty clear bags, and I was grinning from ear to ear when I picked them up. The big surprise was the size though. I got a few smaller ones, but most of them were much larger than expected. A few are big enough that they might trip, fall, and accidentally end up on a plate.

Seriously though, they charged me for 3 lbs. of fish, and I got at least twice that. My tank is seriously overcrowded so tonight or in the morning I'm going to move the largest ones into the not-yet-cycled barrels. Ergo I'm going to have to setup some auxiliary filtration system.

I have a bad picture under "The Fish Monologues" in Member Systems.

for extra work.
for fishies!

-ellie

Good luck, Ellie! Watch the ammonia very carefully. As much as I'm sure you'd like to, don't feed them for a few days.

Liz... as you already have a cycled system with working bio-filter... why not leave the larger fish in there... the aquarium....??

Put the smaller fish in the "cycling" system..... that way you wont be faced with a large sudden increase in ammonia and little bio-filtration.... easier to manage....

The aquarium can manage the load easier with existing bio-filtration and/or water changes IMHO....

Yeah... but like JP says... don't feed them

The tilapia I ordered from VALMEYER FFA came today at 11:30. Got them home by noon. They were shipped normal UPS Monday evening. I ordered 200.
Stats so far: 152 living; some swimming some sitting on bottom. 29 dead on arrival. 19 Missing in action.

They were packed in plain plastic bags with duct tape on the top to seal the bags; no knot tied in bag.. One of the boxes were wet and two bags had almost no water at all, yet somehow there were a few live fish in them. It looks like UPS opened one of the boxes and placed the smaller bags into a trash bag because of the leak. Breather bags would have been a huge benefit vs air in bag method! There was no protection or support inside the boxes that there were shipped in. Having worked for UPS when I was in school I can say that is very very risky. Boxes like that are thrown and smashed and stacked in really nasty ways several times before they get to us...

Anyway, just an update about doing business with VALMEYER FFA.. There were easy to get a hold of and order the fish...

Pics..

gee, some of those fish are REALLY dead

Look like the UPS truck ran over them.

You still did about as well on the post-shipment survival rate as I did with the shipment from Miami Aquaculture.

Maybe if one sent them some breather bags to use....? And a demo picture of how to pack the box? Hmmmm.

The great news is that you salvaged enough that you can get breeding stock and won't have to do this again.

If it was me ,, I'd post the dead ones back ------- next week
See I am nasty.

P.S , There would be a note asking for a refund on defective product ,, but I doubt they would get that far into the package.

We aren't going to be nasty, Chappo. Valmeyer is a High School, and raises/sells tilapia as an activity for the kids. It's also one of the very few organizations that will even ship to folks like us. (Remember the part where I suggested that you might like to ship us some breeders free of charge since we have difficulty acquiring such???)

We might offer gentle guidance, but we will NOT be nasty. We are grateful that they would share their stock with us at all.

I think I will donate them some breather bags. Perhaps when they hear of the survival rate they might purchase a box of bags for them selves.. I ordered 25 for something like $6!

Now, I have less than I hoped for, but I am still going give some away, just not as many... I am hoping that I will have several females to put with my other fish. However, the males are already grown. Kind of backwards from putting small males with large females.. I just hope it works out. If it does, then perhaps I can offer breeder fish to others from two different blood lines.. I sill may buy a breeding pair of penny fish..

hi, newbie here. i thought this was a rather interesting thread to read. so janet, now that you're relatively an expert now at breeding these things, do you plan to sell some of your future offsprings? if so, what's the pricing that would make it profitable/worthwhile for you to ship to the rest of us small-timers in the u.s.?