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Hello I'm new to tilapia farming. I just bought a 10 acre farm in punta gorda with 16 large ponds. I need to find a good test kit and fingerlings to start stocking. Anyone know where to get a good test kit and how to figure out how many fish would be able to go in each pond. Thanks for helping a newbie!

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Permalink Reply by David B on August 16, 2014 at 1:37pm

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the Kudos. It was great having you out for a visit.

Just now reading your post it makes sense that what you may have are frog eggs. The tilapia will usually hold the eggs in their mouths for brooding (unless scared out of em)... so it makes sense that you suspect they could be frog's eggs.

Maybe they'll hatch on their own if they're frogs. Probably won't hatch without an egg tumbler if they're tilapia eggs. Either way I wouldn't worry about it.

I had a strange new batch of something in one of my pools last year I couldn't figure out.. And until they were nearly an inch long I still couldn't tell what they were... I had at the time several different fish species mixed together. Turns out they were frogs! Tadpoles. I not only left them in there as a tasty meal supplement for the much larger tilapia & other fish, but I've actually been raising (completely by accident) thousands more tadpoles in one of my idle boat molds. and have been regularly catching & releasing them into my big tilapia tank to supplement their dinner. 200 of them are usually gone in a day.

So I think either way... whatever you've got its good!

Cheers,

David

Permalink Reply by Jim Kamen on August 16, 2014 at 5:26pm

Hi David,

The more I look at them I think they are frog eggs. But I hadn't thought of using them for food for the bigger fish. I have a whole 10 Gal. tank full of them. Treats for the fish. Yea!! LOL

Permalink Reply by Jim Kamen on September 3, 2014 at 8:49am

Well, I am almost finished with my garden. I never thought it would be this much work. I got lucky and found two small ponds for sale, $50 for both. So I installed them above ground so I can use my original pond as a sump for the grow beds.

I was very surprised to find that I have 45 fish to move into their new home. Then John in Stuart needed a home for his fish because he was moving. I straped 3 barrels together and moved all 23 big fish down here, They went into the upper tank but two committed suicide by jumping out. Fixed that problem super fast.

This past week I built a pergola over the whole thing, 24 feet long!

Now I have two grow beds, 4X4 each. I pump water from the middle pond into both beds and use a sump pump to bring that water back into the same tank. I also pump from that tank into a make shift swirl filter which sends water to the last tank which in turn waterfalls back into the lower tank.

I know this sounds confusing but it is working. Here are some photos.

Permalink Reply by Candis Kalley on September 24, 2014 at 8:22am

Hi Melissa. Candyk here in Naples, Fl. Sorry I can't help. We are just setting up a 300 gal tank and hope to expand to 4 to 6 more of the 300 gal tanks. I'm hoping that I can get some info from the groups also.