thats cool man. i have cleaned thousands of perch but never a blue one. do you have grow beds( aquaponics ) set up with your tanks? been wanting to do that in the basement the last few years but havent goten to it. do you sell the tilapia to people for food? sister loves eating them things.
I've done aquaponics before outside but prefer to stick with just the fish. Inside the lighting gets expensive and it raises the humidity levels too much. (The plants are worse than the fish tanks.)
I don't sell any food fish. Not large enough for that market, and it's not only less profitable, it requires I have a designated facility for cleaning that is HACCP rated. Everything stainless shell, sterile etc. I could sell them live though.
The tilapia I either raise for my own consumption or for pond stocking to control filamentous algae. They also reproduce like crazy in a pond and are excellent bass forage using filamentous algae as their food source. Only downside is they die when water temps drop below 50 F.
Word of warning: Make sure the tilapia your sister eats are raised in the U.S. No restrictions on chemicals and antibiotics of tilapia raises in third world countries. And they may be raised in the same water that raw human sewage is present. In fact the fish will feed on the human feces in some of those countries. They don't taste as good either. Have an off flavor in my opinion.
