Fish for Aquaponics

[samtheman]

I struggled a little this winter keeping my tilapias alive cause of the cold spells we get. I was wondering what other types of fish can I raise in Central Florida for my aquaponic system that don't required for me to use heaters during the winter in Florida. Right now I have catfish in the sump tank and they did great during the winter but I wanted to add another type of fish that I can eat in addition to the catfish...any ideas?

[dead_sled]

Maybe white bass, crappie, or small mouth bass. I am not sure what is available locally for you, or legal.

[eddiemigue]

What kind of tilapia? How cold did your water get?

[samtheman]

I have Blue Tilapia and my water temperature dropped to 57 degrees at times and I lost some of the fish.

[JCO]

Check these out:-

http://woaat.org/shoppe/shop/edible-...cs-guide-book/

http://woaat.org/shoppe/shop/crayfis...cs-guide-book/

I highly recommend them for a reference (since I wrote them )

[samtheman]

Thanks JCO, I had already read your book on how to raise crayfish a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to go for the Australian crayfish only to find out it requires a license in Florida
These books are very affordable and informative, I may have to get the other one on your list

[eddiemigue]

I have blue tilapia as well, and my temps have dropped to 59F at the lowest. Even at this temperature, the fish seemed to have no issues and have continued to eat normally. Perhaps the size of the fish is also a factor.

[davidstcldfl]

Hi Sam, We've bought blue gill from central FL fish farm. They do well in the cold, but they don't grow as fast as tilapia, by any means.
On that note, we had cats and blue gill in the same tanks. As the cats got bigger, they were more aggressive in feeding compared to the blue gill, plus they occasionally damaged the blue gill with their sharp barbs. I think they do better in separate tanks.


57 F. isn't too bad. I've seen our water a little lower then that.

We add small heaters when it's going to get cold (for FL) ...plus, we cover the tanks, and shut off the water pump for the night. ( 'Only' shut off your water pump 'if' you have a good size air pump).
What were trying to do is...get the water temp to drop 'very slowly'. The fish seem to survive and we save electric.
We don't worry about trying to breed tilapia year round. We normally get more then enough, when the water is naturally warm.

Looking forward to meeting you in a week or so...

[samtheman]

Thanks for the info David, I have my cat fishes in a separate tank from the tilapias for the same reason. I do have a deep water air pump so I might try to shut off the water pump at night the next cold spell and see how it does work for me. My blue tilapias came from Stucco's place a couple of years ago and I still should have enough to get me by.....see you next week

[Apollo]

Hey David, if you shut off the pump for the night what effect does that have on your GB, plants and bio filter?

I wanted to run my AP system just on my battery backup at night, it will still add water to my GB's but not enough to fire my bell siphon. Water still doing a splash down back to the FT, plants would just sit in water for the night. Will that work?