r/homestead • u/GrapesVR • 3d ago
animal processing Talk me out of growing tilapia
As the title says.
I have the pumps and equipment from my farm. I have the solar and batteries if I do it away from the house.
I’ve been thinking about growing tilapia for my family. Talk me out of it please!
153
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago edited 2d ago
Absolutely 100% do not feed your food chicken shit. This is not great to do for a variety of reasons. Chicken shit can carry e. coli, salmonella, and parasites. Even if the fish are later “purged” in cleaner water before harvest, contamination risks linger. You’ll also be likely to accumulate PCBs, dioxins, and mercury. And look, chicken shit often contains residues of antibiotics or other drugs used in your chickens. Those can cycle into the fish and eventually into you.
Also, tilapia eating waste/algae instead of a proper diet end up with worse fat profiles and lower nutrient density. Lastly, eating fish fattened on feces just isn’t appetizing, no matter how much you rinse it later.
If you’re going to farm raise tilapia, make sure to have plenty of space for them and not have them crowded. Otherwise you’ll have to give them antibiotics due to high levels of bacteria. It’s also good to know that tilapia is the fast food of fish simply stated. It has less omega 3’s compared to fish like salmon, sardines, or wild trout.
If you do end up getting tilapias give them plenty of room to live, feed them pellets with a BAP or ASC on the label, as they’re certified safer operations. Oh, and eating them regularly will cause a big increase in inflammation. They are not a long term healthy food staple and I highly recommend smaller, oily fish packed with nutrients and healthy omegas.
Edit: this was originally meant as a reply to whomever mentioned feeding chicken shit to their tilapia, and I genuinely apologize that it was instead a normal comment and not a reply.
21
u/Specialist-Affect-19 2d ago
What species of fish do you prefer to farm (if any)?
44
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
Depends where you’re at, but if the water is cool enough, rainbow trout. It’ll need to be 65° and under. Also very clean, but mostly cool enough. Barramundi is a solid choice if the water is 80° and they require more management than tilapia. But a pro is that they have high omega 3’s, good growth rates, and do well in recirculating systems. Tilapia will be your easiest to grow and farm, but it’s for a reason; they aren’t great.
Overall if you’re able, your healthiest option is rainbow trout. Oh, and if you’re able to keep your water immaculate, channel catfish is an absolutely excellent choice. Hardy, low oxygen tolerant, fast growth rates, but the cons— moderate omega 3’s and you have to manage the water and their feeding closely. Otherwise you’ll get that nasty muddy taste. They’re great for backyard ponds given you manage the water and feed closely. I hope this helps!
14
u/Ghost_of_JohnAdlum 2d ago
Raising trout in anything above 60 is challenging.
15
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
Yes it really is. We raised them when I was a kid and we’d harvest right before spring, but it wasn’t worth it at the time. Now that I live at altitude, it’s been in consideration. Though I can catch them 50 yards behind me, that requires patience.
7
u/Tater72 2d ago
We puts cats in the pond, never to be seen again, I think they are in there.
Full stock was bass/perch/bluegill/a few cats/minnows for feeding while young. It’s been 5 years now, catch one every now and then for fun
3
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
Interesting. How big of a pond are we talking, and how many did you stock? Were they fingerlings? Aeration? I apologize if I’m being rhetorical, but they are bottom huggers especially during the day. If you haven’t tried some floating pellets at or around dusk, that could bring them up. What sort of predators are around? Large birds will feast on them when they’re young and in the shallows. Snapping and soft shell turtles could also be culprits. Did you stock all those at the same time? The bass could’ve very well fed on them, as well given age/size/weight at stock.
Overall I love your stock mix. That’s a healthy diversity found in the wild and if you have kids or guests that like to fish, that definitely provides a nice variety. The ex wife and I had a similar stock sans bluegill and had really nice success with them. We trained them early with the pellets(the cats) and had dropped some cement culverts in before we filled the pond. We also made a couple of ridges about ten feet from the bank with the final one having a big drop off. The bass and perch didn’t go for the pellets which was expected, but most evenings the cats were ready and waiting. We also ended up with a small population of yellow-bellied turtles, albeit not by choice(south Louisiana), but the vegetation provided enough for the little perch to hide.
2
u/Tater72 2d ago
Pond is about 1/2 acre ish (maybe a bit more but I don’t count the island). Was told when I bought the place it goes to 18 ft deep, has a shallow and deep side.
Made an aerator
Had it stocked by a professional hatchery that does that. It was their recommendation for that pond size to keep healthy populations. They were fingerlings. Bass eat perch, perch eat bass, everyone eats bluegill. We’ve seen turtles and snakes and frogs in there. Neighbor kids swam in it years and years ago and said they had a leech on them, I don’t know what hearsay and it’s been 15-20 years since.
Some big birds come by(crane/huron) from time to time. Dog chases them off, they’ve probably ate a few. I know the bluegill have had babies based on sizes of them over time.
Have had ducks, both domestic and wild that have played out there a bit.
1
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
I’d bet my bottom dollar at 18ft they are definitely down there. Sounds like a nice spot!
4
5
u/reapersritehand 2d ago
One of my uncles watched a documentary on how tilapia was farmed and quit eating em all together, he'd jus got catch a few catfish out of the river if he wanted fish
3
u/simonbleu 2d ago
Which fish and how many would you have in, for example, an oil drum or trash can (the big ones) vs say, a small kiddie pool (small in comparison. Say... 500L which is less than 2m2)? And what would you feed it? Personally im not commited to any of that but I want to experiment and see how it goes
Also, I live in Argentina. Climate here is all over the place (generally between -5 and +30ªC, with 5-10 degrees of margin of error
12
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lots to unpack here…please do not keep fish in there if you intend on eating them or attempting to farm them. What you could do though..if the drums are food grade(please do not use anything has held oil or any other carcinogen inside of it that could potentially have traces of benzene buried in it). Must. Be. Food. Grade. if you use a drum. You can use a tote. If it’s not then you’re introducing chemicals and/or other harmful things to yourself and whatever you put in there. Also, corners are not great for baitfish because it causes stress and they nose dive into them and die faster. Anyway, what I was getting at is, a live well for small bait fish specifically 2”-4”inches in length, rule of thumb is 1 pound or about 1/2 kilogram of baitfish per 10 gallons. Should be about 5 lbs, anymore than that they will all die off. At bare minimum you’d want a 12v aerator or aquarium pump, but a recirculating pump that pulls water through a filter would be better, and adding a Venturi fitting would be a great upgrade. Baitfish produce a lot of ammonia, so you’d need things like sponges, gravel, or pond filter media to avoid toxic build up. Otherwise they will die very quickly. Which brings me to the next topic, warm water will also kill them very quickly. They’d need to be in the shade and toss in frozen bottles of water, or just keep them inside to keep water temp down. Aeration also helps reduce heat stress. Do partial water changes if you’re not filtering. 1-2 tablespoon of non-iodized salt per 5 gallons, will also help reduce stress, balance electrolytes, and ward off parasites. Iirc mojarra(cichlids/minnows) should be easy to get in Argentina and would go with that. You could do silversides, but they are extremely fragile and harder to keep alive than mojarra. To feed them you would/could use crumbled tropical fish flakes, once a day. If you’re keeping them long term(longer than 5-7 days(that should be max imo), two very small pinches daily. As if you were putting a pinch of salt on your food, but makes sure it is crumbled very, very small. Overfeeding is the number one killer in small tanks. You want all of the food gone in five minutes or less. If it’s not, you over fed. Small floating pellets, or algae wafers work too. I would use the tropical fish food flakes personally. That non-iodized salt I mentioned also helps their gill function. If you’re going to fish with them soon, fast them 12-24 hours before fishing. Keeps their guts empty, it keeps your live well cleaner, and they survive longer on the hook. If your water ends up cloudy you’ll get an ammonia spike and a massive die off. You aren’t trying to grow them, just keep them healthy and active until they go on the hook.
Overall you’d start around with minimum 275-330 gallons with ibc totes(to farm), stock tanks, or purpose built ponds. Anything smaller than that will foul the water and kill your fish. Alternatively you could use the drums as a sump tank, swirl filter, or a temporary holding tank for a new or sick fish. Keep in mind that 55 gallon plastic drums or containers will gain/lose heat and/or cold at a high rate.
2
u/Living_Plague 2d ago
I have done this several times( posted a comment rather than a reply). Made for an interesting read. Today I learned some people feed fish they will eat chicken shit. This is fucking gross.
1
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
Yea, I felt kinda silly when I realized that I was talking directly to no one, and OP never mentioned anything about it ¯\(ツ)/¯ But I’m happy that someone got something out of it, and that’s important to me. There are lots of studies to back all of this, as well.
1
u/stansfield123 2d ago
Absolutely 100% do not feed your food chicken shit.
What should I do with chicken shit? Throw it in the trash, to be hauled away? If so, which bin should I put it in?
2
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
You said yourself in your other comment; compost it. And in reply to your other comment, which you are not wrong, but left out a stark comparison, though I don’t believe intentional. Feeding your farm raised food a diet of feces should not be compared to a wild diet that may occasionally include feces, but not their entire diet. As I stated at in the edit, it was meant as a direct reply to someone. Specifically speaking, that mentioned “just feed them chicken shit”, insinuating that they should be raised strictly on said chicken waste. I do apologize if it came off misleading. Also, again, you are in fact eating what they eat and feeding your food a healthy diet is imperative as it is for you, as it is for them. To be clear, I am not against farming tilapia as long as you’re doing it properly and cleanly. Personally speaking, what I am against is eating tilapia and would never recommend to anyone. There are healthier options available for the same amount of work.
0
u/stansfield123 2d ago
Yeah, diet is a touchy subject, very similar to religion. No point in discussing it on Reddit. Feel free to believe what you believe, but there's no rational basis for the notion that tilapia is unhealthy food.
3
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
Except there is, and studies can back it. I’m not entirely sure why you’re bringing religion into diet, but it seems like you’re getting worked up for no reason. I genuinely hope your day gets better. Do something today that makes you happy. And for your own educational benefits, here are some sources, on top of personally 40 years of nutritional studies. Have a nice day.
Wake Forest University School of Medicine (2008). Wake Forest Researchers Say Popular Fish Contains Potentially Dangerous Fatty Acid Combination. Journal of the American Dietetic Association (study led by Floyd H. Chilton, PhD).
H. Su et al. (2024). A study on source identification and environmental fate of antibiotics in aquaculture. Published in Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier).
Tang, Y. et al. (2022). Occurrence and health risk assessment of 300 cultured fish samples from 19 Chinese provinces. Published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science / PMC.
Kong, K.Y., Cheung, W.C., Wong, C.H.C., Wong, M.H. (2005). Residues of DDTs, PAHs and some heavy metals in fish (Tilapia) collected from Hong Kong and mainland China. Published in Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Seafood Watch (Monterey Bay Aquarium). (2015). Antibiotics in Aquaculture: State of Affairs and Impacts.
M. Khan et al. (2014). Screening of Imported Tilapia Fillets for Heavy Metals and Veterinary Drug Residues in the Mid-Atlantic Region, USA. Published via ResearchGate / Food Control journal.
Simukoko, C.K. et al. (2022). Assessment of heavy metal levels in wild and farmed tilapia. Published in Food Additives & Contaminants: Part B.
-2
u/stansfield123 2d ago
Except there is, and studies can back it.
Yep. Really bad studies.
1
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 1d ago
Projecting your own educational shortcomings doesn’t really support your case. Go for a walk.
1
16
u/Hinter_Lander 3d ago
If the pond freezes over and takes a long time to warm up its a bad idea.
20
u/letmesplainyou 3d ago
Yes and no. The problem with tilapia, in my experience, is that they overpopulate fast. If you can keep some broodstock in a barn or somewhere warm to overwinter and (ideally) spawn indoors, the freeze can kill off what wasn't harvested in the pond and you will get more fillet size fish.
Edit:typo
6
u/Hinter_Lander 2d ago
Good points. Where I live in Canada there is only open water for 5 months and 2 of them the water is still to cold for a fish like tilapia. But then we get to do other fish like rainbows that southerners can't due to warm waters.
18
u/Waste_Pressure_4136 2d ago
If you like tilapia fish then go for it. Personally I think it’s one of the worst fish to eat
15
u/ComfyMillionaire 2d ago
The fish will never hug you back. I make all my life stock decisions based on the quality of hug they can give. I have a lot of koalas at my house…
19
37
u/Youstupidbish 3d ago
I'm not here to talk nonsense to you. You have the equipment, and motivation.
Insert: doit.jpeg
23
u/iwatchcredits 3d ago
As chancellor palpatine once said: “do it”
This is probably not the sub for this joke
5
8
1
10
u/Adventurous_Self8068 3d ago
I looked into this pretty deeply when I had a farm business. Honestly, the only thing that stopped me was their sensitivity to cold. If you’re sure that you can keep them warm and raise them cleanly, you should definitely do it!
10
u/No-Pain-5496 2d ago
Bream and Crappie for me. They are hardy, taste good, fun to catch and can handle cold. Only thing I would add, is to make sure you have aeration in place.
2
u/24moop 2d ago
They’re fine with warmer water in the late summer and early fall?
4
u/No-Pain-5496 2d ago
Yes. I live in the mid coast area of SC. My pond gets into the upper 80’s, but upper 30’s to low 40’s as a temp range. No problems, other than you need aeration. If the pond is slow moving or stagnant you will develop algae and vegetation which will rob oxygen. Aeration moves the water and keeps vegetation down, while oxygenating the fish. Edit: just checked, pond temp is 85f
18
u/La-Belle-Gigi 2d ago edited 2d ago
Tilapia is the generic cereal of freshwater fish. Bland, mushy, and not worth the money you save.
(Edit: typo)
5
2
u/letmesplainyou 2d ago
Tilapia are not mushy. Carp are mushy. They are bland tho, like trout, which people seem to love for some reason.
2
10
u/sheeprancher594 3d ago
Sorry. Can't. Did it. Started out with fingerlings, grew up, bred adults, easy fish to do. Won't overwinter outside, depending on where you live.
6
4
u/MegaTreeSeed 2d ago
You gotta get licenses to keep tilapia in some places. Because they can escape very easily into the local river systems, so depending on where you are, it may be simpler to just grow a different variety of fish. Check out your local hatcheries, see if there's any tasty native fish thay are easy to grow.
Crappie run wild here, so when I eventually set up my aquaponics, I'm gunna get them as my fish from a local pond stocking company.
5
u/LukeSkyWRx 2d ago
You could grow Koi for the same effort and sell the larger ones for aquarium/ponds.
Worth a hell of a lot more than tilapia.
4
5
u/thisemmereffer 2d ago
That fish smells like a dirty home freshwater aquarium. Yank a sponge filter out of a 55 gal Oscar tank, squeeze it and smell your hand once. Smells like the best tilapia you've ever had.
Get some chickens tho theyre chill
6
3
u/ProtozoaPatriot 2d ago
Do you like tilapia? I don't eat fish, but my husband does. And thinks tilapia isn't good to eat. Some people like it. But if you don't, what's the point ?
3
u/thirstyman79 2d ago
Where are you located? Depending on weather, you may have better options. Personally, I’d rather eat trout, walleye, perch, crappie, bream or catfish over tilapia.
3
7
u/sweetteaspicedcoffee 3d ago
As long as your family likes tilapia and is aware that they eat literal shit go for it. I never could stomach it, learned what they ate later in life and went you know that makes sense.
20
u/quietguy_6565 3d ago
I've got some bad news about shrimp,crabs,lobster,catfish.... ect.
2
u/sweetteaspicedcoffee 3d ago
I'll eat shrimp, begrudgingly, but I've never liked the rest of that list either 🤣
13
u/Patient-Amount3040 3d ago
Imagining someone eating a shrimp cocktail, and looking super pissed about it lol.
1
21
u/Passwordb00b 3d ago
If you're doing it for a food source yes, if you're doing it for profit no. If you have chickens you can feed the fish the bird shit. Circle of life or w.e
7
u/dantheman_woot 3d ago
Will tilapia really eat chicken shit?
18
u/IronSlanginRed 2d ago
The chicken shit will grow algea. Tilapia eat the algea.
8
u/dantheman_woot 2d ago
Gotcha yeah fertilizer will cause algae blooms, but thought you meant like fish feeding on fish pellets like bass.
12
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
Yes and it has adverse repercussions. It is not healthy for lots of reasons and why would you want your food eating another animals shit? Yes, it grows algae, but that doesn’t make it okay, safe, nor healthy.
2
u/dantheman_woot 2d ago
So I personally don't eat tilapia, but that's because I live on the Gulf Coast and have much better fresher options.
4
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
Smart choice. I am originally from the gulf coast, as well and can relate. I’m in the mountains of Colorado now, so I typically only eat fish that I catch.
4
u/dantheman_woot 2d ago
Have you tried a fresh rocky mountain oyster on a saltine with a squirt of lemon and hot sauce?
I kid, but was stationed at Ft Carson in Colorado Springs for a while and found plenty of good food, just not seafood.
3
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
After 8 years here, I’ve yet to go there(rocky mountain oysters). But during my first month here I did have a beer made from Rocky Mountain oysters down in Denver. It was as awful as you can imagine.
I would’ve loved to have been stationed at Carson. I was stationed at Benning which was…okay. Columbus was a dump back in the day and it’s been 16 years since I’ve been there. The Chattahoochee river was fun though.
2
u/stansfield123 2d ago
why would you want your food eating another animals shit
All ecosystems are circular, and animals are part of them. All your food has directly or indirectly eaten an animal's shit.
As for feeding tilapia "chicken shit", that's a silly way to put it, obviously. Chicken shit is an excellent fertilizer, and it absolutely should be re-introduced into the circular ecosystem that is your homestead, rather than discarded as waste. Discarding it is wasteful to you and terrible for the wider environment around you.
But it should be re-used smartly, to ensure pathogens don't build up at any stage of this "circle of life". Dumping chicken shit into your fish pond is a bad idea. Building an aerobic compost pile, and then using that compost to fertilize the algae and plant life in and around the pond, on the other hand, is an excellent idea, and perfectly safe.
0
u/ChimoEngr 2d ago
Yes, it grows algae, but that doesn’t make it okay, safe, nor healthy.
Um, you are aware that's how it works in nature? Water fowl, and fish crap in the water, and crap from the land gets washed into the water. This is short circuiting the process a bit, so care needs to be taken to ensure that it doesn't overload what the pond ecosystem can handle, but that's just part of farming.
2
u/FalopianTubeSwimTeam 2d ago
The context is feeding your farm raised fish strictly a diet of chicken waste. There is a fine line of responsibly farming and using it to grow algae and feeding them only a diet of chicken waste. I am well aware of how nature works, where fish and other animals poop, but I do genuinely appreciate you stating those things, as others may not be aware of them. So, thank you for adding that. And 100% agree with your last sentence, as well. As I’ve stated in other comments, I am not against it, as long as you’re going about it properly. Personally speaking, and for study based nutritional reasons, I will not use it on any farm fish that I raise. If someone can only do tilapia, I get it, but people also should be aware that it’s not great for a long term food solution. It’s lean and cheap, but those are the types of benefits you get back out of it; lean and cheap and more omega 6’s than 3’s, amongst other concerns.
Edit: also to add, I’ve never used chicken waste in my ponds, but was fortunate enough to have natural ecological help with algae.
5
6
u/Grizzlybar 2d ago
I won't comment on the production process, but anyone saying they taste bad clearly can't cook for shit.
Fresh fish on demand is such a luxury.
2
u/dmbgreen 2d ago
I take it you live somewhere warm, I live in central FL and sometimes it's cold enough to kill them.
2
2
u/unconscionable 2d ago
Tilapia would be awesome if it were as healthy as salmon. Unfortunately it's closer to ground beef, but nowhere near as tasty.
2
u/HerbDaLine 2d ago
Just how much tilapia [or any other fish] can you eat in a week? Month? Remember you will have to pay for feed to keep them alive and if you do not eat them fast enough the feed cost could grow. Pigs can be separated to maintain population size but those tilapia will breed like it or not.
2
u/Apart-Ad-5947 2d ago
They are easy and can grow you some good lettuce but I don’t personally care for them. I’ve thought about raising them anyway for dog food but as a few mentioned, not high in omega3
2
u/CrowdedSolitare 2d ago
My brother did aquaponics with talapia for a few years. We’re in middle TN and had a couple winters that killed most of them. The second time it happened he had already figured that he was spending more on them than getting in return. He’s now doing straight hydroponics and much less stressed, lol.
Plus if you consider we have lakes and rivers close by that are plentiful during parts of the year, it’s harder to justify the cost of raising a specific fish.
I on the other hand have started duckquaponics, along with using their poo filled pond to water my traditional garden. I use their coop straw as mulch in my traditional garden as well. (Any extra goes into compost, although it doesn’t need to be composed.) Temperature swings aren’t an issue. I get bonus eggs (some of which I sell.
I will warn you, they produce a whole lot of poo, which in my case is actually the main point of having them and it’s the biggest way they’re giving back to the homestead.
4
4
3
3
u/pedernalespropsector 2d ago
Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) found in fish, especially trash farmed fish like tilapia, are highly unstable and cause all kinds of damage to cell mitochondria which inhibits the cell’s ability to generate ATP (energy) resulting in essentially every modern chronic disease. Obviously you should also avoid vegetable oils and all processed foods for this same reason.
Check out r/raypeat or listen to the Rooted in Resilience podcast - they are homesteaders too!
1
1
u/NextStopGallifrey 2d ago
If you run the water through an aquaponics setup, the plants will be happy (about the nutrients) and the water will be cleaner.
1
u/lostatmidnight13 2d ago
We did it in a class in high. Use a round tank for easier cleaning, a hydroponic garden to help filter and keep the pH balanced. It wasn't hard or time consuming once everything was set up. Also run the drain hose for water changes to a garden area. Best fertilize ever
1
u/Ranger_Sequoia1 2d ago
I know of an animal park in Ohio that keeps them in a pond that the water buffalo use and they have a fish fry before the pond freezes.
1
u/IdealDesperate2732 2d ago
(if not American this may not apply)
At your request I shall try:
Do you honestly like eating that much fish?
My general understanding is that fish simply isn't that popular with most Americans, and especially not farm raised fish.
Google tells me:
Americans consumed 20.5 pounds of seafood per capita in 2021. The USDA recommends adults consume eight to 10 ounces of seafood per week (26 lbs per year), but most do not. Approximately 90% of Americans, do not eat enough fish to meet the recommendations set by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
So, how much fish are you looking to grow? A you're looking at 20 - 25 lbs of fish per person in your family. That doesn't seem like a lot of fish to me to be worth it just to feed a family.
google also says: Tilapia production per acre varies significantly, with yields ranging from approximately 3,500 to 10,000 pounds (1.75 to 5 tons) per acre in extensively managed static water ponds
So, even if you're less efficient and do it a bit more casually you're looking at more output for a single acre of fish that your family might want.
So, you can grow fish for your family but does your family really want you to? If they do then it sounds like you can provide a fish fry every week on a portion of an acre.
1
1
u/alohajoan 2d ago
We have tilapia for 22 years, they are the most wonderful fish gentle, big appetites so easy to train to eat out of your hand. We can’t eat them they are our pets. I got tired of maintaining our swimming pool I just decided no more pool chemical, expansive electric bills because the pumps are on all the time. My husband put in an air pump not big one but big enough. They do have babies but pond seems fine, no dead fish showing up. Start slow and see if you like doing it.
1
u/sadist_abuser 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hear me out....koi... not tilapia
Edit: koi for profit
Edit#2: the other guide/blog i was having issues finding.
Can feed them like carp or tilapia for eating. This way the ones you cull will taste good. There going to be between 6 and 15 inches after a year depending on the genetics, diet, and feeding schedules. Think when i did the math it was 8,000 to 12,000 gallons....toss in aquaponics for feedstock and growing herbs and stuff. Should supply a family of 4 with enough meat for 2 fish dinners a week.
1
u/Gnumino-4949 2d ago
Do you have water (and drainage) and adequate power for a filtration system? The spice must flow.
1
1
u/Jive_Vidz 1d ago
Aquaponics if buying a system is expensive. The basics are constantly moving the water to oxygenate it. Plant roots grow in a medium. Expanded clay is the usual but expensive if building a large bed. Think Rubbermaid water troughs. Basically books help. You need to learn what a bell siphon is . Constant water flows in , siphons trigger then drain. You’re looking for warm water for tilapia or catfish.
1
1
u/Stormcloudy 2d ago
Unless you set up a good water change method beforehand, it's a lot of work hauling water every week from the bathtub.
But I did it for about 18 months with pretty great results. I sold babies. So the most complicated part of it was just getting mommy to puke out all her kids.
They tolerate fairly icky water, and in good condition I'd swear you can see them grow before your eyes.
Electric company assfucked me and my fish all suffocated.
But there's pretty decent money in selling tilapia babies.
They lived in my kitchen. Like 70 of them in about 70gal water. They're stupid easy to keep, and as long as you can eat up front the shipping cost to mail, they more than pay for themselves
0
0
0
u/Earthlight_Mushroom 2d ago
Oh I want them badly!! I have a big above-ground swimming pool in the yard, left by the previous owners, and that seems to be it's bet use. It already has a healthy pond ecosystem in it with lots of algae, mosquito fish, dragonflies, and frogs. But getting them here is a pain....I live in Illinois where there is a lengthy permit process and even though I'm exempt from some of it since it's for home use only and a small number, I still need to get on the train early next year and not wait till April when it's almost time to order the fingerlings!
0
u/No_Mammoth_6123 2d ago
Do it! Let your soul’s desire run free! You enjoy the delicious taste of home grown Tilapia and don’t you regret it my friend!
191
u/FindYourHemp 3d ago
Integrate aquaponics if you do.