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View Full Version : Hello from Merced, CA



kingme
05-03-2010, 08:02 AM
Hello everyone. I am gardener (urban homesteader) in Northern, CA. I am researching aquaponics and I plan to learn as much as I can and build a system in the very near future. I have been told by my wife and two daughters that our rabbits need a new hutch built before I can start a new project such as aquaponics :lol: . So as soon as I get that done I will hopefully start on a fish farm for my backyard. We currently have rabbits (Pets and fertilizer) and seven chickens (egg machines). I think the fish will be a great compliment to what we have so far. I have a few general questions to start. This may not be the right spot for these questions but here goes and I will move them if needed:

1. I keep reading about breeders in a seperate tank. If you buy males and females (Tilapia) won't they breed in a tank anyways, like they would breed in the wild? Do you have to have specific "breeders"?

2. Does anyone know a source for tilapia fingerlings in Northern, CA? I have seen a few in San Diego, but I would like to find some closer if possible.

3. Does an aquaponics system need constant circulation. Do I need to have the pump running constantly?

I am sure I will have more questions as I plan out my system. I think I have some pretty good ideas, but I would like to bounce them off you guys who have experience with this.

Thanks,

Wayne

REEFBUG
05-03-2010, 09:35 AM
Hi Kingme, and welcome!! I think an AP system is a perfect compliment for what you have going on now. I am just learning at this stage but I will try my hand at your questions, the pros will chime in and help soon also.

1. I believe the separate breeding tank is simply because in the main system the fry will get eaten and/or sucked into the filtration.

2. No help from me here.

3. Depends on the system, a pump to the grow beds can be intermittent or constant, but the filtration on the fish tank is important to be on all the time. If those are separate pumps no problem.

Chris

badflash
05-03-2010, 10:19 AM
Yes, males & females will breed and produce fry, but this is not optimal and you have no control over the quality of the offspring. Idealy fry should be raised with others of nealy the same age. Small fish have different needs than big ones, and yes larger juvies will eat smaller ones. Still, you can just put them together and get babies. This tends to end up with too many fish on one tank. The best thing is to keep males & females separate so they spend their energy on putting on weight and not babies or killing each other.

A fish tank needs constant waste removal, so you need something going all the time in a closed system. It does not have to be pumping the water. My system uses an air blower in the tank to move water through a bio-filter. Eventually you need to pump the water to your growbeds. Cycling a pump on & off leads to quick pump death, so a small pump running all the time is better than a big one that cycles.

I don't know of anyone in Norther CA that sells tilapia. This isn't a big deal this time of year as fry can be shipped Priority Mail for very little money. CA only allows O. mossambica without a permit BTW.

JCO
05-03-2010, 10:39 AM
Welcome to the show....pull up an easy chair, relax and stay awhile. New voices are always a welcome addition to our family..! Whatever questions you have on you mind, this is the place to get the answers :mrgreen:

jackalope
05-03-2010, 01:01 PM
Hello kingme;

Welcome to the forum, glad to have you aboard!

My info is that Tilapia is only legal south of the Techahapis in the state of California ..... Be sure to check with the F&G HQs before buying Tilapia (I had a fish customer who was told by the local F&G agent that she could buy Blues from me and raise them in an indoors system (she lived North of the Techahapis), and when they came in on the FedEx airplane, he intercepted the shipment and destroyed them "because they were illegal in CA." She wasted $250.00 on fish and Overnight Air shipping .... as badflash says Mossambica is allowed , but the info I get from the CA F&G is that O Horonorum is also allowed, but as I say, they only allow them south of the Techahapi Mountains. I will find/provide some emails I have received if need be. I also have a list of CA aquaculture suppliers for many different kinds of fish if/when you decide to start up.

I try here to encourage everyone to check their state laws before deciding which fish to use for their AP system. So far, CA, OR, NM, and HA have answered my emails requesting info in the laws for Tilapia in their state saying that Tilapia are only allowed under certain circumstances, regardless of what you may hear from 'experts" ..... and beware of local F&G agents who want to shaft you and make points with their superiors, be sure you check with the state HQ themselves, and when they do respond, make sure that you ask them which specific state laws/statutes and administrative rules they are using or quoting. One of our members here, Paul Trudeau, is very knowledgeable about CA laws concerning Tilapia, he attends lots of public meetings and such, so I encourage you to PM him for more info.

I have found here (Montana) that the F&G agents are quick to quote the "law", but have no real earthly idea what the law really says. I like to get the "law" from them (MCAs - Montana Code Annotated - keep in mind that the F&G 'Administrative Rules' don't carry as much weight as the code/ statutes, whatever your state calls them), and then either go online to the state laws or go to the law library (usually every county seat will have a law library which every citizen has the legal right to use), look it up and see if it is what they say it is ..... my personal feeling is to educate yourself on how to use the laws and law libraries to your advantage, rather than let the local LEOs run roughshod over you! The County School District here gets rid of their old MCAs every other year, so I collect them from the "free books" pile and I now have a complete collection of MCAs that's only two years out of date. If I have something to research, I look it up in my books, then if I feel I have a case, I go to the law library and look it up in the latest laws to see if anything has changed! It's worked for me several times over the past 40 years, it can work for anyone else if they're willing to do some self-education!

OK, I'll get off my soapbox :!: :!: :lol: :lol:

kingme
05-03-2010, 01:17 PM
This is great information. I appreciate everyones responses and I hope more folks weigh in. I will have to research the tilapia issue. That was the fish I wa really hoping to use. It doesn't seem like it would be a big deal in a closed system. I guess I could go with catfish, I just feel we would be more likely to eat more tilapia then catfish. What other typres of fish are being used?

badflash
05-03-2010, 03:01 PM
Tilapia have downsides in colder climates. You have to keep them above 70F all year around or they get sick and die. Below 40F most die in a few days. They need to have water in the 80's for rapid growth.

A really exciting fish in cooler climates is hybrid sunfish. They can stand 33F water and grow to 2 pounds in 2 years. They taste a lot like tilapia. Downside is that unless you want to buy fry regularly, you would need to keep separate populations of fish to make your own hybrids, or replace the parent stock every few years.

Hornorum are in the same class as mosambica, but nearly impossible to find on the market. I have a charter to breed them, but I can only sell males to produce hybrid breeder colonies. The colonies are really pricey, and unless you want to go commercial, it isn't worth it.

Mossies are small, but easy to keep and breed. If you scale, gut & head them and eat them bone-in they work great. They are a little small for fillet.

kingme
05-03-2010, 03:31 PM
Are hybrid sunfish readily available? Or are there restrictions on them as well. I would not consider us a cold climate. We are very warm in the summer 100-110 degrees is normal for several weeks of summer. We rarely get below freezing, but I guess it would be hard to keep the water 80 degrees.

You mentioned mossies are they a sunfish? I was really hoping to raise tilapia because we like to eat that variety. What ever we choose I want to be able to raise it fast enough to feed my family. I am in to the self reliance aspect of this. As well as knowing where my food comes from...

Thank you all so much for replying. This seems like a great place to learn...

badflash
05-03-2010, 07:14 PM
Mossies are tilapia. O. mossambica.

You need to find out what the restrictions are locally, but sunfish are native to most of North America. The hybrid is known as bream.

jackalope
05-04-2010, 06:53 AM
Redear Sunfish is another possibility. As far as Tilapia, Blue, Nile, Banded, and Redbelly are restricted. T. Mariae or the Spotted Cichlid, which I have very little knowledge about, are also supposedly legal in CA, from what I'm told, but they are considered an invasive species because of their aggressive behavior. There are several farms in CA that sell O. Horonorum, but as badflash notes, they may be hybrids or restricted to 'male only' sales for hybridizing with other strains.

T. Mariae are a substrate spawner, rather than a mouthbrooder which may or may not make it harder for youo to breed them, (depending on your particular circumstances), and are very aggressive and very prolific, from what I've read about them. Here are a couple of links for the T. Mariae that might interest you:
Clik ;) (http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=1430&fr=1&sts=&lang=EN)
Clik ;) (http://www.springerlink.com/content/pkm0734k8212134u/)