About AmeriCulture

AmeriCulture was started three years ago with the intent of providing a service that the industry had not yet seen. At the time, the availability of Tilapia fingerling was marginal at best. Aquaculturists had a very limited set of options available to them.

One option was for them to purchase their fingerlings from another farmer. In a way this made sense. If a farmer was producing more fingerlings than they needed, it is logical that they might choose to sell off the extras. The only problem with this was that most farmers naturally wanted to keep the best fingerlings for themselves. The result was that the fingerlings that were sold tended to be culls or runts that had less than perfect physiological characteristics, and were slow to reach market size. As you can imagine, poor growth can really hinder an aquaculturist’s production schedule. If a farmer plans to have market sized fish in 7 months and it ends up taking 11 months, his or her cash flow can be seriously affected. It is not a situation that most people want to find themselves in.

The other option was to purchase fingerlings from a fingerling producer. However, there were very few of them out there, and the ones that were around were primarily pond growers. This posed two very distinct problems:

• First, the availability of fingerlings dries up in the winter. Since Tilapia are a tropical fish, they won’t spawn once the temperature drops in the fall. Some producers would try to maintain a winter supply by underfeeding their fingerlings to keep them small. Unfortunately, this inevitably resulted in stunted fish that wouldn’t grow anyway-again, not a great situation to be in.

• Secondly, it is difficult to keep pond-grown fish reliably free from disease. Since ponds are open to the environment, birds, amphibians, reptiles, snails, or insects can freely enter and, possibly contaminate the pond. Birds are a particular problem because they can carry pathogenic agents or even diseased fish from farm to farm. This problem can be devastating for the farmer who unwittingly purchases the infected fingerlings. A farm that is clean and free of disease can suddenly begin to experience expensive losses or find the need to treat diseased fish with antibiotics or other therapeutics.

Professional Hatchery

Founders: Damon, Gary, and Garrett Seawright

AmeriCulture is a full-service, professionally-staffed hatchery that produces Nile Tilapia. We are unique in that in addition to providing top quality fingerlings, we also provide our customers with technical consultation by two staff Ph.D.s (Aquaculture, Infectious diseases, and Veterinary medicine) on fish husbandry and disease prevention. We are proud to be able to assist our customers in becoming more effective farmers.

Our Fish

3.5 Pound Male

We sell exclusively all-male Nile tilapia fingerlings, which are produced using an FDA-approved sex-reversal procedure. Since our concentration is on fingerling production, we are able to allocate the resources necessary for our aggressive genetic development program.

It is very important to us that you don’t receive anything but our best fish. Our fingerlings are graded at least three times before they leave the farm. If they aren’t growing according to our standards, then they don’t get sold. We would much rather not sell some of our product than risk sending our customers anything that could potentially be below standard. There simply isn’t another fingerling producer out there that is more dedicated to setting a new industry standard for quality and uniformity.

Health

The health of AmeriCulture fingerlings is unsurpassed in the industry. Good health is one of the most important features that our reputation has been built on. Our location, facilities, and geothermal resource allow us to maintain an optimum rearing environment for our fingerlings and to minimize the possibility of introducing tilapia pathogens into our facilities. Routine health inspections by a USDA-accredited Aquatic Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, using Blue Book protocols, provide ongoing evidence that our fish are free of Streptococcus, Trichodina, and other significant tilapia pathogens. Additional evidence is provided by the large number of facilities across the country that have only used AmeriCulture fingerlings and have never isolated a significant tilapia pathogen. 

Our Facilities

Our production facility is in a remote location in southwestern New Mexico, distant from any natural bodies of water or other aquaculture facilities. All of our fingerlings are produced inside geothermally-heated greenhouses in pure well water from a desert aquifer. Our enclosed facilities protect our fish from the diseases that can contaminate aquaculture facilities. We also maintain strict biosecurity to insure the future health of our fish and the disease-free status of our facility.

Availability

Our facilities also allow for consistent annual production in excess of 7 million fingerlings with very little variation in seasonal supply. As a result, we are able to ensure that the fingerlings available in the winter are just as high quality as the fingerlings available in the summer. Our fingerlings are typically pre-sold 2-4 weeks in advance.

Please call us toll-free at 575-548-2328 for more information or to schedule a fingerling delivery.