Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species Tropical Delight

So, someone put some albino oscars into the pond in my neighborhood.

Too bad they won't survive the winter here in VA. Would be fun to see just how big I could get them... I couldn't catch the darn things to save my life so I contacted Scott(esshup) about giving some Stubby Steve's a try. I saw a couple of the albino oscars feeding on pellets, tossed an original SS out and bam! The he was...

I also was able to catch a few other species to see how their growth rates were progressing. SS definitely works when trying to target pellet trained fish!

I assume that's another species under your belt Travis? Even as an aquarium stocker, that's pretty cool. There was a piranha caught in Lincoln a few years back and the likelihood alone would tip the cool scale.

suprised they did not get eaten by LMB.
catch them and sell them on Craiglist, could get a few bucks for them.

No LMB in the pond.

oh, pretty amazing what will survive in a pond with out LMB.

those oscars seem like neat pets for the summer...

Oscars are supposed to make for eats too,....

think those oscars have chilled to death yet?

We hit 31 last night, last I checked a couple days ago water temp was 59. 52 is fatal for oscars, just a matter of time...

Travis -- that is pretty neat.

I got the blue tilapia out of my son's aquaponics tank yesterday. The water was 48F degrees. They are happily living in a 40 gallon tank in my basement, as of last night. I was surprised at how lively and healthy they were at this temperature.

They grew from about 2 inches to about 7-8 inches since July. The bluegill, goldfish, and fathead minnows that were in the tank when we added the tilapia were nowhere to be found when we emptied the tank yesterday. We put in six tilapia, and we took out six. We know the tilapia spawned a number of times, but there were no small ones.


They helped grow an incredible amount of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, and spinach. Everything will probably die tonight,as we will probably drop into the 20s. It snowed much of the morning here today, and we drove through heavy snow yesterday morning from just outside Morgantown, WV to the outskirts of Cumberland, MD. The ground and highways are still relatively warm, so driving was OK except for very poor visibility.

So, how are everybody else's tropical fish doing as winter is fast approaching?

I took my 40 or 50 tilpia hybrids out of the outside fish tank a week and go and spend a fair amount of time filleting them. Will have fish once a week for a few months now. Tried one marinade that was a little too spicy and will try a lemon pepper breading baked tomorrow.

Not going to pick back up on the Aquaponics until May or so.

Cecil -- I'm going to try and get mine to spawn before I fillet them. But, as soon as I've got babies, the adults will become dinner. I may need some tips on keeping them in the basement over the winter.

Its really cool how many people are raising tilapia. They do a good job on pond algae.

You'll probably need a heater, size depending on system size. I've been using an aquarium heater and controller i bought on Amazon 2 years ago and it's still running strong. Amazon has better prices than Ebay and typically has free shipping.

If you're not growing plants you'll need a biofilter. A moving bed filter in a 55 gallon drum will be your most economical and easiest to build along side another drum with deer fence netting to keep your water clean. (Clarifier Tank). Then all you need is a pvc siphon to pull water into the clarfier tank, and a small mag drive pump that sits in top of the deer fence netting in the clarifier tank to pump the water to bottom of the moving bed filter, which simply overflows to the fish tank.

i'm planning on harvesting my tilpia from the ap system, hopefully this weekend, most are over 3lbs, these were 1" when i bought them in july of '12.. finally got a freezer to store a bunch..
i have probably close to 40 tilapia, and maybe 80yp to harvest
i'm not sure if i'm going to try trout this winter, or hsb.. leaning towards hsb..heck, i'm still not sure where i'm getting new fish yet