On Thursday October 21st, Tawnya, Emerson and I drove down to the Mosca Alligator Farm to pick up our first batch of local raised White Tilapia. The gator farm was amazing and there are a lot more than the over 250 alligators. They have snakes, lizards, turtles, emus, rabbits, a wallabe and thousands of Tilapia. Emerson had a great time petting some of the animals and watching the gators. The second picture shows Chris Youngs netting out our fish from one of their several stock tanks.

 

We loaded 10 full grown tilapia into two 30 gallon tanks and 80 fingerlings into two seperate 5 gallon tanks. All of the tanks had aerators to keep oxygen in the water for the fish during the long drive back to Denver. Once back at the GrowHaus we siphoned off some of their water and added tank water from the aquaponics system so they could adjust to the temperature and other variances in the water quality. They spent about 4 minutes adjusting until we gently introduced them into their new 300 gallon home.

 

The fish seemed very content after transport and have already started eating again. Of course one of the little fingerlings found his way through the screen mesh protecting the pump and took a wild ride through the plumbing and ended up in one of the grow beds. It's better to burn out then to fade away.