I'm loving all of these stories. Ignorance may or may not be bliss...but it's a wonderful source of entertainment for those in the know. (And I've been the ignorant one more often than I care to recount.)
I'm ecstatic to say that I FINALLY have my aquaponics setup at least partially stocked with fish and the plants are now going in. It's been quite a battle with more than a couple "redos" of the work my hubby did for me, and once we got the system running smoothly we discovered that as of 2016 Arizona has banned owning and raising Tiliapia as they've now classified it as an invasive species. I was told, "Get goldfish" and "Get Koi", but the whole point of this venture was to raise my own food and those two ornamental fish simply don't fit the bill. I did manage to covertly acquire some Tilapia and am now doing all I can to convince Game & Fish to make allowances for aquaponics enthusiasts, but it's proving to be an uphill battle. Apparently they're convinced that all of our dry riverbeds will soon be overflowing with this invasive fish. I was even told by one employee that there haven't actually been any negative reports of Tilapia taking over AZ water systems, but since it's been a problem elsewhere (she specifically mentioned Australia), they don't want to take any chances.
It frustrates me how hard our government agencies work to keep people from growing their own food.
Is the ban is on just the Nile tilapia or all species used for meat- Mozambique and blue?
