Tilapia food and Fingerling

[Tropical Aquaponics]

I live in the Caribbean and Aquaponics is still in a baby stage here.  Where can I get good quality feed and fingerling at a very very good price?

[TCLynx]

Lets see there were a number of questions there.

I started in Aquaponics at the end of 2007 so from starting reading on the BYAP forum to now it's been about 3 years for me.

Just keep bugging the people with the water tanks I know that those business and fish farms are not always good at getting back to people so keep trying.

Another option might be liner in the ground or I've made a fish tank using fence panels and pond liner. Plastic stock tanks from a feed store can also be an option.

Turnip and collard greens. I can't say that I ever tried feeding those to the fish. Turnip greens are so easy to grow but they are really high in calcium so you might want to also offer something like parsley with them to get some magnesium to balance it. Anyway, David's advise sounds pretty good to me. Biggest challenge with feeding leaves to tilapia as making sure they don't clog up screens or pump grills. I don't actually keep tilapia anymore as they are too much trouble to keep warm when catfish grow so easily for us without the danger of dieing from the cold.

[Ken Richardson]

Thanks everyone for all the good answers, the reason for the question was i was going to buy a large seed package that had 5,000 of those seeds and i cannot stand them myself lol, so i thought would it, could it

TCLynx said:

Lets see there were a number of questions there.

I started in Aquaponics at the end of 2007 so from starting reading on the BYAP forum to now it's been about 3 years for me.




Just keep bugging the people with the water tanks I know that those business and fish farms are not always good at getting back to people so keep trying.

Another option might be liner in the ground or I've made a fish tank using fence panels and pond liner. Plastic stock tanks from a feed store can also be an option.

Turnip and collard greens. I can't say that I ever tried feeding those to the fish. Turnip greens are so easy to grow but they are really high in calcium so you might want to also offer something like parsley with them to get some magnesium to balance it. Anyway, David's advise sounds pretty good to me. Biggest challenge with feeding leaves to tilapia as making sure they don't clog up screens or pump grills. I don't actually keep tilapia anymore as they are too much trouble to keep warm when catfish grow so easily for us without the danger of dieing from the cold.

[Paul Ellinghuysen]

I live here in central fla. a fellow I know near by raises talipia. I went and call him last week and he said he would have some around Feb. His PH number is 180 771 6033.Ask for Bruce. If you go with the blue talipia there maine food is algae,cut up veg greens, and they love string algae which is great news for the ones like me who has water gardens. Paul

[Root Doctor]

We feed our tilapia and other aquaponic fish with zooplankton, fish fry, algae, insect larvae  and bacteria laden detritis. This is a technique we refer to as bioponics. Instead of relying on fish to provide nutrients, we create nutrients for water and fish are an incidental feature but not required for nitrate production. More info on our site at bioponica.org

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Ken, my experience is that they will eat swiss chard after it has been left in the tank a while (not as enthusiastically as the lettuce, though) but that is probably milder that what you are talking about...but it is a data point on the spectrum anyway...

[Root Doctor]

They also love the biofilm and roots of water hyacinth. If raised adjacent to a pond, these plants can be transferred for a day into the tank and then for a week back into the growing beds to regenerate.