Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Anyone in the south eastern united states? What fish do you suggest for year round harvest system?

Outside? Tilapia need heat in Winter, catfish are pretty solid.

bluegill, hybrid striped bass. and +1 channel catfish

LMB work good too but it's a constant battle with cannibalism.

I wouldnt recommend tilapia at all.

OK, so no tilapia. Probably go with the channel cats. How hard are they (compared to bluegill) to introduce into a new system? And yes it will be outside "technically" (the whole system will be in a greenhouse). There will be a 275 (possibly 330 gallon) gallon fish tank, 4'x8'x13" gravel filled grow beds, two 4'x4'x13" floating raft beds, two 200 gallon sump tanks, and one radial flow filter.

275-300 gallons is on the low side for channel catfish, they get big/long relatively fast. However, I am certain people raise channel cats in ibc and it's possible.

As far as introduction, the same as any fish. You want to slowly acclimate to new temperature and PH and the less drastic the change is from the source water to your system the better.

If my fish tank is on the low side for the channel cats, would the bluegill be a better option. I would like to put as many fish as realistically possible. I have been reading that the catfish take 2 years to get to size for harvest.

bluegill can take up to 3 years to reach harvest size..

Hillbilly

There's tradeoffs to all fish , you have to choose priorities then there will be a "right" choice for you.

The commercial growers grow channel cats for i think 1.5-2 years but that's a big fish. I thought this 4.5 lb channel cat from my ferro thread was only 1 year old but i guess it was two. You can certainly get them to 1.5 lbs in 1 year which i consider harvestable size and very good eating...




keith,

I think 3 years is an exaggeration for BG for someone in alabama. I prefer keeping blugeill 2 years because i like fillets but i can get them to a good pan size of 10 or 12 oz n 1 season starting from fingerlings.

Bluegill grow a lot slower than channel cats but you can make up for it in stocking density in an IBC tank.

In my experience bluegill are more resistant to poor water conditions than channel cats.

true... i wasn't thinking of that.. just how long they took for me..
if you find a good bloodline, you could easily have bluegill in 2 years..

What would be yalls opinion on having both?

both in the same tank work fine. The bluegill will typically stay at the top of the tank and the channels at the bottom.

channel cats are opportunistic predators and will eat small bluegill while they are "sleeping" but this is easily avoidable by just managing the fish sizes. Typically fish will only try to eat what they can swallow whole. If you start with

year 1, bluegill and channel cat fingerlings and harvest channels at the end of the year..
year 2, add channel cat fingerlings and continue to grow the existing bluegill, harvest all fish at the end of the second season.
year 3, repeat

should be a pretty good plan.

Awesome, sounds good. Thanks for the advice.

Ok, after some searching I cannot find anyone that will ship bluegill or channel cats to my house. I can, however, find a few places that will ship tilapia to my house. So, i may just have to go with that and ditch the year round harvesting for a while.

Edit: Could I just get a heater to keep the water above say 60 degrees during the winter and keep the tilapia alive year round?

If the tank is inside a GH or very well insulated, or better yet, both, you may be able to keep them above 60. But at 60, they aren't very happy. They usually slow or stop eating around 65, mine don't eat well until over 70, and then really kick in above 80.

I find overnight shipping fish is prohibitively expensive. Have you searched for local pond stocking places? My best options in texas are 1 and 2 hours drive each but i consider that a lot better option than shipping fish for cost and for fish health/stress.

dunns apparently sends a fish truck to your area.. i would be surprised if you dont have
http://www.dunnsfishfarm.com/fish_types.htm

never heard of "stock my pond" but apparently they do too
http://www.stockmypond.com/product_cate ... h?state=al

I am surprised if there arent any places you can buy pond fish relatively close to you