Oh Those Amazing Tilapia

This video was shot at the beginning of  week 12, though I put it together this afternoon. The fish will be 13 weeks old on the 21st. Their growth since the previous video was apparent while recording, however at today’s weigh-in amazing gain was confirmed, as most of these food fish are now 6 inches long and some are 7.

That’s an inch of growth in a week.

In addition to being fine growers despite feed supply issues*, this year’s tilapia are also nicely light in color. Our previous two crops contained quite a few of the dark blue colored fish, but we endeavored to produce whiter blue tilapia this year and it seems we have succeeded. Growth rates slow as the fish mature, however this year’s harvest is on track for late fall.

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Here they are as fry. Awwwww.

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* My usual supplier failed and so I ordered from online suppliers and received spoiled feed that the fish refused. Twice. Happily I have duckweed overwintering in the greenhouse, and have  aggressively managed that, but winter is not duckweed’s favorite season.

They Grow Up So Quickly!

Here’s a video I took yesterday of this year’s food fish. There are a couple 6″ fish and a few 3″ fish but most of these Thanksgiving babies are now 5″ long.

If you want to eat local responsibly micro farmed fish you are reading the right blog! Order your share today!

(Look below the video for a glimpse of what these fish will look like come harvest time.)

 

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Two beautiful share fish from the 2012 crop.

 

2012 Tilapia (early harvest)

There was splashing. There was plenty of bullying and there was fighting. The big fish were terrorizing the timid eaters (and thus smaller fish). So we arranged to harvest a pair of medium shares (a total of 14 fish) two months early. And this is what we sent home with two happy shareholders this week: big and beautiful, fat and sassy totally plate worthy tilapia. The smallest fish weighed in at a pound and a third, while the largest (the one that’s 2 inches thick as shown below) weighed a pound and a half.

That’s a lot of aggressive eating! Here’s hoping the less aggressive fish remaining in the grow out tank get their eat on, because the late December harvest approaches!

97 Tilapia 9 Weeks In, 20(ish) To Go

We’ve had these tilapia nine weeks. They ranged from 3/4″ to about 2″ on April 7th when we installed them in our closed-loop 400 gallon fish farm. (one 300 gallon growout tank, two 50 gallon filter tanks)

Two weeks ago we sold the extra fish we’d purchased in anticipation of the much mentioned die-off. Three of 123 fish died in the first week after bringing them to their new home, and one we flushed on grounds that it was a guppy. We are now stocked at 97 fish, which is just under capacity for this tank. Our breeding colony will come out of this group, as will the CSA fish shares we sold.

Speaking of, all indications have us successfully delivering market size fish (1.5 pounds each, or about 13″ long) in early-to-mid November (so, 20ish weeks away!), as a number of these tilapia are already 6 inches long. A couple are 7 inches long. Those marks on the observation window (final video segment) are spaced one inch apart. The line is five inches long.

If you planned to buy a fish share, please note that there are only two medium shares left. All other shares are sold.

Tilapia Farm Upgrade

We’ve had the tilapia exactly one month. They have grown as advertised, and so has our electricity usage. So I constructed an insulating blanket from foil-gilded bubble wrap. The materials for a similar device to drape over the top of the tank at night is on order. This will not only help conserve heat (thereby energy use) but will also help reduce evaporation and condensation.

Did I mention they are growing like weeds? Take a look at the video I shot of them today: