Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What fish can you pair together? I live in texas so it is pretty hot here.I know tilapia can't be farmed year round, so could I Raise tilapia and catfish? I wanted to do aquaponics with tilapia but I heard it has a bad omega 3 to omega 6 ratio in farmed tilapia, so if you feed farmed tilapia algae instead of fish food will that Chang the omega ratio?

Hi Briktorian,

Welcome to the BYAP forum!


What part of Texas do you live in? Temps vary greatly between the Rio Grande Valley and the Panhandle about 800 miles to the north... But I would expect in many parts of Texas one could raise Tilapia year round without having to artificially keep the water warm.

Catfish have a habit of eating anything that will fit in their mouth. So with small Tilapia and larger Catfish you might end up with no Tilapia and fat Catfish.

Do you have any references to the bad omega 3 to omega 6 ratio in farmed Tilapia information? I think Tilapia are one of the most widely farm raised and eaten fish. According to tilapia.com:


Of course they supply about 25% of the North American Tilapia market so naturally might have a bias. However we're big fans of scientific studies around here, so any references would be appreciated.

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Sam

http://www.muscleandfitness.com/nutriti ... -fish-tale. Is one site I found. But Im not sure if it's the truth or not. I live in Longview TX, I think I will try tilapia, do you know any fish that can be kept in the same tank as tilapia? Thank You for your help

I have bluegill one cat fish and tilapia all in the same tank for a year and ½. They are doing well together. The cat fish likes to hide most of the time the other fish just hang together.

I am careful not to add very small fish so they don’t get eaten.

After looking at Tilapia's omega ratio from the aquaponics perspective I found this. It brings up a good point to these post about tilapia having a bad omega ratio says nothing about aquaponics. Also I found out most farmed tilapia comes from China l, where they have lots of diffrent people farming them for mcompanys. I think that in its self is not a controlled envirment. Whats are your thoughts? viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18940&p=416739&hilit=Omega+6+tilapia#p416739

I think I'd go more with the conclusion of that article...

I personally try to avoid food coming from China. I'm quite leery of contamination in China.

Temp-wise, it looks like your average temp in Longview for the past year was 20.5ºC with only 8 days where the high dropped below 10ºC. Do you have much of an idea about what your water temps would be? If you can keep your water temps above 10ºC then most Tilapia varieties should survive. Keep it above 13ºC to minimize stress. They thrive in temps between 21ºC - 30ºC with some varieties being more temperature tolerant than others.

Good luck!

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Sam

Perfect thank you for all your help