We has bluegills and shellcrackers!!

FishWagon, aka Arkansas PondStockers

Spending $10 for less than a pound of catfish on Thursday increased my appetite for buying my outdoor fish.

I knew the Fish Wagon [aka Arkansas PondStockers] was going to be at the Manassas Southern States Coop Friday. So I went for it. I picked up 25 hybrid bluegills, 50 redear, and a pound of minnows - all for less than $60. I plan to pick up a handful of catfish in a month or two, when Ive got the 300 gallon tank in place.

I know Im doing it all backwards. But having the fish in the tank, crying out for the greenhouse to be built, has made clearing a couple of trees an emergency. Mere planning for a greenhouse would have allowed the hard tree-clearing part to get delayed for weeks, months, years.

Trees are down now, with a small bit of bad news. Apparently my greenhouse cant be taller than the brick wall at the end of my property. Which would make the greenhouse, I dont know, like 48" tall. The lady purveying the unhappy news did make some helpful suggestions that might work, though. And my greenhouse design can be scaled to whatever height is allowed.

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Squeee we has tilapia!

Fish. Live Fish.
When I got the e-mail from tilapiafingerlings.com saying they would ship late last night, I went to the web to re-watch Murray Hallams discussion about getting new fish and how to deal with them.


I carefully reviewed the instructions in the e-mail:
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Receiving and Acclimating Your Fingerlings

In order to properly acclimate your fish to their new environment you will need to follow the steps below. You should already have a tank established and ready with de-chlorinated water, proper ph, and an air stone with sufficient air bubbling through it. You will need to begin the process below immediately after receiving your fish.

1. (Thermal Acclimation) Remove inflated bag from styrofoam box and place sealed bag in receiving tank. Sealed bag should float on top of the tank for 15 minutes in order for the temperature of the water in the bag to slowly equalize with the water in the tank.
   
2. (PH Acclimation) Remove the clip on the bag and roll down the sides to make a float around the sides of the bag. Then place a bubbling air-stone inside of the bag since the sealed up oxygen will have escaped when you opened the bag. Over the course of 15 minutes, you will slowly add an additional 1.5 gallons of water from the receiving tank and pour it into the bag, in order to gradually acclimate the fish to the ph of the receiving tank.

After step 2 you will tip the bag over to let the fish escape. They will generally go straight to the bottom for a few hours until they get used to their new environment. It may take a couple of hours until they are ready to eat food

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We had one little guy who was clearly "not like the others." As in, they were swimming and he was not. Seems he got caught in a crease during shipping and suffocated. The new tilapia are significantly smaller than my goldfish, so I got a pop-up hamper to protect the tilapia. It isnt that the goldfish would eat the tilapia, but my comet goldfish liked to badger their fellow goldfish. I can only imagine the fun theyd have chasing baby tilapia - until, that is, the tilapia "stopped swimming..."

Ill post more in a few days. Hopefully the tilapia will continue to do well!

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