Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

There are many Asian markets around our city that sell live fish in huge thanks. The closest one has some large pink tilapia about eight or 10 inches long and blue looking tilapia about six or 8 inches long. They also have some sort of black looking catfish about 10 or 12 inches long. They normally also have a mixture of red swamp crayfish and the other smaller and lighter colored crayfish. Back home in the south we would often catch two different kinds of crayfish in the same trap. The sign says the crayfish are wild call and I assume this is why the two types are together.

Aside from not knowing the strain and possible disease from the tanks are there any other issues with getting live fish for aquaponics tank like this?

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Getting them home... ...

Yeah. Getting them home would be probably the most difficult part. I do have 5 gallon buckets. I also have a small bait air pump that runs off of batteries. I am only a mile from the store so I don't think there would be much problem transporting them. Getting them weighed at the fish counter and put them in the bucket alive might be even more difficult. I am familiar with raising fish and do think that unless I'm missing something terribly that I would be able to breed them successfully.

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one problem is, that they may be all male's, and no females, because the have been treated with hormones to make them all males, because males grow bigger and faster than females................

That's true rs. I forgot about that.

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First you have to see if they sell it to you live. If they do like the two we have here in our area, then taking them home is really not difficult.
If you got a big colman cooler, that works great. I have transported live fish in them. I always place a plastic garbage bag between the top and bottom, that kind of seals it.
My cooler is a bit bigger than this one:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Coleman-Marin ... er/9222616

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My system thread

I'll give it a dry run. I imagine they are hybrids. They have what looks like Mozambique and also Nile. The hybrids I don't know about.

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Did you have any success with the Asian Market Tilapia? I am in the beginning stages of aquaponics experimentation however I did find a guy in Oak Harbor with a pretty well established aquaponics set up that sells blue tilapia fingerlings. I got 9 last month and they are doing fine in 55 gallon and 30 gallon aquariums currently. I brought them home in a small cooler with a couple air stones running. It was over an hour from his place in Oak Harbor to mine in Snohomish. They are pretty hardy. The second day with them one jumped out while I was away and he was pretty much dried up when I found him. (not sure why the cats didn't feast on him.....lol). Anyway before burial at toilet, I decided to pop him into a container of water, and he came back to life within less than a minute. He's still alive and well some 4 weeks later. Bottom line...they're pretty danged hardy.

Years ago I bought two bright orange fish that looks a lot like a garibaldi from an Asian supermarket that I was able to keep in my pond for a few years.