Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose I must be crazy

I am considering going into a limited tilapia growing operation. I dare not call it a business since I am looking only to really overwinter enough for personal use. I have a barn that I could house them in, but my first concern would be what kind of tank and filter system I would need. Or at least I assume that would be my first concern. I also would need a climate control system, but I already have ideas on that. Can anyone comment on how much trouble I am going to get myself into by trying to overwinter about 100 lbs of tilapia in Northern OK?

Svoberts,

No you're not crazy.

Order the book "Small Scale Aquaculture". It's not expecially technical and shows how to set up your own Recirculating Aquaculture system with items found locally. A lot cheaper than buying a commercial system!

Tilapia are very forgiving fish that can tolerate low D.O. etc. An easy species to work with as long as you can keep the water warm. If you have enough tanks you can actually use the water for climate control itself. Get the book and you won't be sorry. According to the book you can easily hatch your own stock in an aquarium before putting them into your growout tank.

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/6709/cid/2853

Shawn,

You are absolutely not crazy...or maybe we both are crazy because I'm kind of interested in doing the same thing. I'm going to at least order the reference that Cecil provided and make a feasibility determination. My wife has been after me for years to build her a greenhouse...now maybe I've got another motivation to do that.

I'm just fascinated by the Tilapia and would like to study them more.

p.s. thank you Cecil for the reference...its on order for me.

I believe Eastland had a bunch in an aquarium that he turned loose.

I'm thinking of doing the same thing myself in my backyard water garden in West Houston. It takes up most of the backyard with 3500 gallons and up to 4 feet of water. It's fully filtered and has two major falls that move 3000 gallons and hour. I've been able to keep the temperture up on cold spells by adding water treated for chlorine. Any ideas if a fish farm can ship Talapia by overnight in bags? I did get 60 lbs. from Tod Overton for my pond but neglected to keep a few out.

Thanks for the advice. I think I might be able to add a greenhouse for spousal effect. I'll keep everyone advised on how things go. And I have to order a book!

I have thought of a similar setup to increase forage in my bass pond. After visiting a koi dealer and talking to Texas Parks and Wildlife and fish farms the setup that I will be trying is the inflatable above ground pools, www.intexcorp.com, from Wal-Mart. They are cheap, come with their own pump and will affix a homemade filtration/areation system. Can be setup in a greenhouse or fashion a cattle water trough heater to maintain temps in the winter.

TEXAS715:

IF you have never used a cattle trough heater (we call them "tank heaters" up here, but I realize that has an entirely different connotation in TX), I offer the following advice:

1) The units I am aware of have a built-in thermostat which is set to keep water not too far above freezing (40 deg F) - I think this would not be warm enough for Tilapia. Perhaps the built-in controls could be circumvented or modified.

2) Ensure the heating element does not touch the sides or bottom of a plastic pool. That's how I managed to burn down a watering trough.

I did raise this years batch in an aquarium, but my pond was without many predators, and I only needed a few to get me started. Next year will be a different story, and I'm right there with those trying to overwinter a few. Todd O told me about his high electric bills overwintering in his pond, I'm planning a much smaller scale, in the garage or outside shed. I hope we can bounce ideas off each other as time passes, right now, I'm looking for anything that's roughly the size of a pool table and can hold water. I will probably get my heat from solar panels and batteries since I already use them to irrigate my fall food plots for deer.

I received the book that Cecil recommended, thank you very much Cecil, and I must say after going through it quickly it does seem a bit imposing.

The key elements are 1)a container, 2) insuring adequate DO, 3) filtration to remove ammonia, and 4)heating source.

I've thought of options to accomplish each one of these except the filtration system...then it occurred to me, and here comes a crazy idea, that there are things called "hot tubs" that provide some degree of each of those elements...and in fact I have a hot tub that is seldom used. In addition, I see them for sale (used and cheap) all the time from disenchanted folks who realize that hot tubs won't return them to their glorious days of their youth.

Is it possible that a hot tub could be used to successfully over winter a few pounds of Tilapia?

What do you think?

ML Now I have heard of everything. Your Tilapia will be living the life!!! The only thing you will notice if you get a hot tub for them is that their wine consumption will go way up. At least that’s what I found for my wife and I.

I love it only here in the US would fish get their own hot tub to winter over in!!! Next thing you know you will be buying them cruises to the Caribbean to relax and stay in the sun over the winter months. :rolleyes:

I love my pond and my fish but I guess I am not ready to spend the buck to give them a luxury item like that as of yet.

I do like your creativity!!!!

Eric,

Actually, ours isn't used much...but I can only imagine what the wife would say about this idea...but seriously, there are always used units out there that people just want to get rid of..and I'm thinking it might work.

I hear you it just might work as long as you can keep the temp down low enough and not cook them. I would hate to see a power outage and then have the unit reset to 102 deg. and have you come out and have some nice cooked fish Or if it reset and the blower came on and the fish were on the top surfing the bubbles. But if you left the jets on low with a little air, you might just have something there.

Maybe I will tell my wife I am going to do that unless she spends more quality time in the hot tub with me.

I think you have found the next "craze" in human hot tubbing.

Sure anybody can jump into a hot tub filled with hot water, but the man or woman who can be in a hot tub with hot water and tilapia is a King or Queen.

It may take a few minutes (or years) to get used to the squishy squirmy feeling, but when you do....................WOW!

I would be a bit nervous about sharing a hot tub with one of them!! I would not want the fish thinking I was in there feeding it a Worm or anything lol

But hey if they have a place to go and swim with the dolphins and pay to do it, I say then lets start the next craze of hot tub with the Tilapia and charge some big bucks :rolleyes:

I ordered and read the book Cecil recommended, it was definately informative. I was going to pick up Tilapia last week, but a trip to the vet for an injured dog sucked up my disposable cash. Maybe next month, if he still has some.

Here are my near term plans. I am going to start putting together a materials and costs list to build the system. First I will start off with the recirc system itself, then I'll start looking at the climate control portion. A heater from a hottub might work, if I can get it dialed down low enough to not give me Tilapia soup! Even if I can't get the fish this year, there is always next year. My intent is to grow them during the summer, then keep a few over the winter. This way they would be mature adults in the spring and start spawning right away. I'll keep everyone up to date, and I would recommend the book Cecil mentioned earlier, a great resource not only for tilapia, but other fish as well.

BTW, does anyone know how long Tilapia live if kept at the correct temperature?

Mozambique (Oreochromis mossambicus) can grow to more than 14 inches and can live up to 13 years.

I would sure like to overwinter a lot of them, sounds like a cash cow at $10 per lb. I already have a budget for operating a facility, now if I can just get the $$$ and guts to try it

Are you guys interested in tilapia as a food item or as grazers or as a forage fish?

Having read so much about tilapia on this forum, I recently bought and fried some and was disappointed, finding them far inferior to any of the sunfishes that I have used as table fare.

If you haven't eaten tilapia, please do before you mortgage the farm to raise them.

Interesting about the taste, these fish are sold by the tons worldwide, from where I am they are shipped whole, frozen or live, and fileted.

I don't know if this will help, but during the hot season my surface water temperature was 97 during the day, the bottom, at 8', was 88.1. At twilight the surface would drop to around 90. This was at the end of what would be my summer following 3 months of high 90s every day.

Dudley,

I can't speak for the others, but my interest is forage and the other terrific features of Tilapia...eating is just a bonus...and according to statistics, they are one of the top 5 fish being consumed worldwide, so somebody must like them.

Some like dog, some like monkey heads, some like octopus. Differing tastes drives the economies of most first-world countries. Also, most sunfishes are considered sportfish and, I believe, are illegal to market.

My unstated point was unless you've tasted tilapia and really like it, why raise tilapia for the table when the readily available sunfishes are, in my opinion, far more palatable?

One other thought occurs to me, many of you will be keeping these fish in the tank for 3 maybe more months, during which time they will breed and brood small fry, if the water temps are high enough. With the possibility of two batches each winter you might be able create your forage with little or no additional cash outlay. A great idea.

I gotta agree with Dudley. I find the "delicate" taste of tilapia to be almost tasteless. I think their appeal is to people who don't like a strong "fishy" taste. Neither do I but tilapia appear, to me, to be at one extreme end of the taste range. I kinda think that their prolific breeding habits combined with their hardiness is a strong contributor in a protien starved world. Also, since they are farmed in private waters, I doubt that their flesh carries the pollutants that we are warned about in other food fishes. I eat them when they hit the table but I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut about my wifes selections of table fare.

The aquaculture book said that their algae eating can affect flavor, but didn't specify how. Eastland, would you be willing to share your opperating budget?

You are a wise man indeed, Dave.

The finest fish dish I ever had was at the Filipino restaurant when New Orleans hosted the World's Fair years ago. I don't know the cooking method or the fish species (probably tilapia) but it was cooked in some sort of sweet sauce. I would have ordered a second round but everyone else was ready to move on. To say it was fabulous would be a gross understatement.