Originally posted by Ryan Freeze:
Just to satisfy my curiosity, I wonder how many people in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virgina would buy tilapia for algae control at $8 per pound and how many pounds. How about a Co-op?
I would buy 15lbs for my 1/2 acre.
I don't know how I missed so much of the recent parts of this thread, especially Ryan's post above. This is one of several really great threads that has kept me awake at night.
I feel it is too late for me this season, but I'm sure interested for next season. As I've posted elsewhere, and as I carped at the PB convention, I've found it to be an extremely frustrating effort to try and get tilapia or grass carp in my area (I'm in West Virginia, but just 15 miles west of Winchester, Virginia).
I'm seriously thinking about doing both types of fish just for friends and myself next season -- if the bureaucrats don't get the best of me. We've only got two in-state, and one out-of-state who can sell grass carp in-state. All are many hours away from me, with schedules that don't match mine.
The closest tilapia I've found are more than eight hours away. Does anybody know of anybody who can ship a few small aquarium size "tropical fish" tilapia that I could grow out, and if so, can they ship out of their state? A few I contacted were not allowed to sell out of their state.
Nobody seems to know what I have to do to bring in "non-native" tialpia -- much less try to provide them alive for pond use. All I know is that I seem to need an "importation" permit, and neither fish fit into a category for bait fish or food fish.
(Am I the only one in WV on PondBoss?? We need a WV pond lobby! As far as I can tell, our aquaculture industry is less than small.)
I've got room, I've got clay soil that doesn't perc very well, I believe I have enough water, and I've got a backhoe/loader to dig some grow-out ponds. (If I should decide to go this route, I'd eventually like some advice on building them so they would be easy to maintain and seine.)
There seems to be enough of us within 400 miles of each other that we should be able to start something. For now, this is just a hobby for me. I'd be glad to share whatever fish I can grow out for ponds.
Thanks
Ken G.
