Even if you buy the stuff at your local petco..... quarantine!!!!
I frequently see Anchor worm on the local fishes for sale in the local petstores!!! If they have Anchorworm... I shudder to think what else may be lurking!
I have bought feeder fish from my local petco (hey what can I say they are only a block away) and put them into a quarantine tank only to find most dead before they even get out of the bags! The ones that survive develope an ugly fungus within days and it is not unseen for them to begin to develop tumors!
Not in MY TANKS... Even if I use feeders... They are quarantined and fed anti-parisitic feed... Don't want that stuff in my tanks! Or my ponds for that matter...
Scary when you think of it... I am hoping to get my own colony of minnows to grow and reproduce by the end of the summer... I want to supply myself with feeders and not buy them outside... Thess are for my handfull of bass and the channel cats, not tilapia of course.

Sheryl
Riverside, Ca


Quote Originally Posted by crawdad
Jeff.

"YOU DO NOT...I REPEAT...YOU DO NOT WANT TO BRING IN ANYTHING FROM A CREEK, RIVER, LAKE OR POND AND PLACE IT IN YOUR TANKS"

You really have no idea what kinds of infestations of all kind of little creatures from leaches to all sorts of tiny insects etc. you'll introduce to your system that feed on fish. If you do that, you'll loose all your fish and then have to break down the entire AP and sterilize and rebuild it from the ground up because they will get into your grow medium and breed like rabbits.

Years ago, I was wading in small creek looking for sailfin mollies (the green variety grow wild in Florida) when I spied some ghost shrimp. I caught a few, took them home and put them in a 10 galleon tank with some Convict chiclids thinking they would eat the shrimp (they didn’t) but I noticed little black spots on the shrimp that looked strange. That afternoon the spots disappeared from the shrimp and appeared on the Convicts. I caught one in a net to investigate and quickly found out they were young leaches and I tried everything to get the off the fish and get rid of them to no avail. Finally the fish died and I was so disgusted, I threw the entire setup, tank, filter and all in the trash.

Even if you live in Florida or elsewhere that Blue Tilapia are found in the wild and you catch some and want to bring them home to put into an AP system, quarantine them for no less than six months and watch them vigilantly every minute for anything that looks suspicious, swimming funny, body shaking, strange spots (that may or may not move around) anything and then think twice more before introducing them in with fish you know to be healthy and parasite free.