Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I shipped a package of tilapia fry to a friend in Florida 2 weeks ago. The package went missing. Yesterday after 13 days in transit. When the package was opened, 8 out of 25 fish were still alive! Never saw anything like it!

Just hope it wasn't the authorities since only blue tilapia are legal without an aquaculture permit here in Florida.

That is up for interpretaion, as most tilapia species are now naturalized throughout florida, with the blues going the furthest north, and mossambica all over further south along with the niles. Saw lots of nile tilapia when I was at disney this summer.

The fellow I shipped to has been breeding T. horonorum and O. mossambica for 30 years, so it wasn't an issue. Last info I got was they were putting up the white flag due to the fact that they can't do anything about the wild populations, which have been there for about 25 years.

You and your friend are brave men as "interpretation" is up to judges and agents are often just to the letter of the law or filling citation quotas.
I called til-tech and they were so apprehensive to selling me tilapia that even though I have a permit they were not going to sell me any
until they checked out my permit with the LDWF.

Tilapia are tough indeed!

I discovered a few days ago that I had left a couple of fry in my hatchery system. They had been in there for 2 full weeks with no food, no heat (water temp was 67 F) AND I had drained it down to about 10% water, replacing it with untreated tap water full of chlorine. They were swimming all over the place and were quite difficult to net out.

I am surprised that they could handle any chlorine at all.??

As the tilapia I have are getting bigger. I have had a problem with jumpers . It is usually the bigger ones that land on the floor and get dried out.
I had one on the floor for(at least)a couple of hours. all dirty from the dust. I saw it's gills open a little so I held it to the water. I opened its mouth and moved it through the water. (swim little bugger) when I turned it loose it would float sideways.
After about 10 min. it was swimming upright.

Thought I would go back the next day to see it dead but, it is just fine.

Put some plexiglass on top . sometimes you can hear them hit it.

I've been hit in the head by jumping tilapia while grading/sorting them many, many times. It can actually hurt a bit!