Steve you da man! Great system and I agree there is nothing wrong with tilapia as far as raising them and the taste! And obviously you have a market and you're selling them so that's always a plus. I raised my first tilapia in a small scale outdoor aquaponics system last summer and absolutely loved them. Hardy, fast growing, always hungry, produced a lot of nitrates and nutrients for my plants, and best of all they were delicious. No bad taste whatsoever!
Presently I'm growing out YOY bluegill and yellow perch that I bring inside to the basement for the winter to get added growth before planting male bluegills and female yellow perch back into the ponds. No doubt you could raise them in your system as long as they are feed trained.
I hope to build a pole building this year and move my trout that are presently outside inside to conserve water and increase the pounds of trout I grow out annually. I'm seriously looking at designing a system that utilizes airlifts to run the entire thing on air. Best part is air lifts are easily DIY. 10 watts to move 15 ft3 of water per hour (66 gpm)!
BTW what brand of RDF is that? Looks like you have about 4 ft3 of K1 in each barrel? What's the size micron mesh of your RDF?
Love the idea to have your biofilter barrels horizontal vs. vertical to save on space. Never would have thought of that. And obviously it works as I can see the media churning in there.
As far as the book Esshup brought up it can be found on Amazon for about $21.00. I don't think you need it but it's fun to read and get ideas. And the author covers tilapia extensively. And for that price you can't lose. Steve VanGorder, the author, also shows how to hatch tilapia in aquariums. I'm going to go that route at some point so I don't have to buy the tilapia.
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Scale-Aquacu...ale+aquaculture
