It’s official, Really, She Bought a 12 acre Farm, gonna go live in the Barn and set up a fish farm.
So Aquaponic Lynx the farm will be moving about 17 miles to the west of where the Residential farm is now.
Very exciting but it will likely take a couple months to get totally moved and up and running at the new property. This weekend is probably the last good chance for tours at the current location in Tangerine. So Easter Sunday Farm tours at the old place in Tangerine.
Come summer I’ll be doing farm tours at the new Place over in Yalaha, FL once we get set up.
It has been a rough past two weeks trying to get the deal on the property closed. The village idiots at BOA kept loosing paperwork and asking for extensions on the closing (and yet if I were to delay the closing for any reason they would have charged me by the day.)
Anyway, I’ll be working hard getting the place habitable and ready for the aquaponics and other animals to move over. So much to move, so little time. Stay tuned for updates and the announcement about the first farm tours (which probably won’t be till Late May or June.)
One of my favorite things about the place (besides it being a nice chunk of agricultural land) is the steel roof to collect rain water off of. I should be able to run the systems with only minimal well water if I can get a bit rain water storage tank (or a couple of them.)
Anyway, that’s the big news. Aquaponic Lynx LLC will have a new home and enough space and the right zoning to be able to run a semi commercial auqpaonics operation without the neighbors constantly causing me code enforcement issues. Just around the corner are a produce stand, a BBQ place, and a bakery that may be the perfect outlets for some of the local produce and fish.
I’m very happy for you! I know this has been a long time coming. You’ll do great! Best wishes!
mark
Thanks Mark.
I am so proud of you!!! Follow that dream, Girl. What?…..and leave show biz?????
Very kewl man! I wish you the best.
Cheers
Great for you!! Nice to see good karma at work!
Awesome TC! So glad it finally happened for you.
TC, Im sure you will really enjoy that expanded area to all Aquaponic projects! Please email me when your tours become available. Paul
Awesome! I’ve seen what you’ve done at your current spot, I can’t wait to see what you can do with a place that gives you a little elbow room!
Congrats! Best wishes for the new place.
Which fish will you grow up? I suggest the Clarias, if you can use in your state.
I don’t know of these Clarias you mention, can you post a link to more information about them? I grow Channel Catfish and Bluegill since they are native fish that are both fairly easy to grow and tolerate a wide range of temperatures as well as a fairly wide range to water quality conditions. The channel Catfish grow fast in My central FL climate and even the bluegill can reach edible size in a year as long as you are not aiming for big bluegill.
Ok, now that I have had a chance to search, The Clarias Genus of Catfish are native to much of Asia and Africa. They are the air breathing catfish and include the invasive species of walking catfish. I’ll not be trying any of these here in the USA since they are not native and I have some perfectly good native species to use here. Now if you live where these fish are native, then by all means, use some of them for your system but I don’t recommend going to any lengths to import exotics when there are perfectly suitable native species on hand.
what growth rates do you see for your bluegill? From my research, it seems like they need 2 seasons to get to eating size. Most folks I know use tilapia because of the fast growth and efficient feed conversion. Unfortunately, the require higher temps, and as I understand it, the bluegill do fine on a wide range of temps.
Another alternative might be carp or a carp polyculture.
Bluegill exhibit a wide range of growth rates (kinda like mixed gender tilapia.) In my Central Florida 300 gallon system, I had some Bluegill to eating size in less than a year (eating size being between 6-8 ounces a 1/3rd of a lb bluegill is plenty big enough to clean and cook and eat.)
If you have perfect water quality and perfect temperatures and high quality high protein feed and you separate your tilapia by size and grow all male tilapia, you may get faster growth from your tilapia.
But if you are growing for backyard use, Bluegill are fine. They are good eating and they will survive winter without requiring you break the bank on heating your water. If you are in a cooler climate than mine, you will probably be keeping most of your bluegill for 2 years to get them over 8 ounces. If you want bigger fish, get channel catfish. In my experience in my unheated central FL system, the channel catfish grow bigger/faster than tilapia and we like the taste better.
All three, bluegill, tilapia and channel catfish are mild fish with not strong flavor, they will take on the flavor you cook them with.
I am probably a bit warmer than you, or at least, longer growing season. I am in northern Mexico.
But, we still get cold winters some years, and that can limit the tilapia production. I know of several fish farms around that raise tilapia outside here, but I’m sure they keep their breeders in controlled environments.
A lot of people stock blugill + bass in farm ponds locally, and I have eaten bluegill and channel cats my whole life. They are good eating, no doubt.
That is interesting that you get faster growth from your catfish. I didn’t realize they were fast growers.
I can get catfish, bluegill and tilapia locally, so at least that part will be easy.
Have you stocked tilapia and catfish together? I’ve heard the cats will help keep the tilapia numbers in check, but I’m not sure on that.
In the interest of fairness, I stock catfish fingerlings when they are between 3-7 inches long which probably means they have already survived their first year after hatching probably before I get them But then I can have the bigger ones up over a pound in far less than a year in my system and I figure they often get up over three pounds after a year in my system. If I keep them two years I can get up close to ten pounds but you can’t have that many get that big in a tank.
I would say try different things and see what works for you.
I did have a few big catfish in a tank where I also had a cage of tilapia, at one point in time a fitting fell in the cage and I didn’t take it out, the tilapia managed to use it as a surface for breeding. I netted most of the fry that resulted when they swam up but a couple escaped me and the cage. The big catfish didn’t bother trying to eat them. See if you are feeding the catfish, they can be kinda lazy and a big fish can rarely move fast enough to catch a little fish if there are any objects in the tank to hide in. So I don’t know how effective catfish would be at controlling tilapia populations.
yeah, I will probably try out some tilapia at some point, but carp or bluegill will be my learning fish. I would hate to kill off a big catfish, just because I’m still learning.
I have seen several reports of catfish/tilapia polycultures that seem to produce really well. I’m not sure what niches each is filling, but I think the tilapia keep the algae down.
Polycultures in natural ponds are going to be different than tank culture aquaponics. That said, some people do keep different types of fish together. I do have a tank with bluegill, catfish, koi and goldfish that all seem to be doing fine together (only had two small goldfish deaths in that tank.)
TC, what a great opportunity this will open for you and obviously fill a dream. This is my first time to your sit. Way to go. I am fairly new to the world of aquaponics but have already become hooked. I’m thinking about going to the training coming up in September, by the way is how I found you site. Just a lot of information out there to consume.
Hi Ken, thanks for stopping by my site, and letting me know what led you here. I do hope you will come and visit us this fall at the
Practical Aquaponics Training workshop.