I have been reading post about talapia, I have never heard of them. I have just had a new 200x90 pond dug in September 05 for my grandchidren (and me) and was wondering if I should stock these. By this Friday I will have added 35 HBG 3-4", 90 RES 3-4", 50 CC 6-8", 12 LMB 6-8", 350 BG 3-4", and 3000 FH Minnows. Should I add some of these for the LMB & CC, and if so how many and where do I get them here in Kentucky.

Hey, Donnie,

Tilapia are several species from the Cichlid family, which is roughly the tropical equivalent of the Centrarchidae family we know well from it's black bass, sunfish, and other members. The Tilapia themselves are somewhat analogous to the sunfish members of the Centrarchidae.

Tilapia are typically prodigious breeders, eat a large variety of food, and can grow rapidly given they have enough to eat. Being tropical fish, they will not overwinter in most of the continental USA. Mozambique Tilapia, the only species legal in Texas and perhaps the variety best known to PB forum members, dies off as the water cools off below 55 degrees F in the Fall/Winter. Therefore except for the Southern edges of the USA, Tilapia must be restocked each Spring.

Tilapia have proven to be excellent forage for bass and very useful at greatly reducing Filamentous Algae ("FA", aka pond scum) in Texas and other Southern states where their growing season lasts 8 or 9 months. They even seem to successfully reduce bottom muck from older ponds! Since you (and I) are farther North, we would get less productivity out of Tilapia each year before they died off. For this reason, I do not believe Tilapia are warranted for use in Kentucky as of now, but there is more than one pondmeister experimenting with Tilapia as far North as Indiana and we will probably have more information on what benefits they can provide in this region by next Winter.

My advice would be not to worry about stocking Tilapia in you new pond this year, but keep track of the results Northern pondmeisters get with this fish and consider if they would be good for your pond in the future.

The March/April 2005 issue of Pond Boss magazine, available here , has a great article by Bob Lusk and Larry "Meadowlark" Hartley which is an excellent intro to Tilapia.

Theo, thanks for the reply. I will read the article and try to stay atop of any information that pertains to our area.

I can only add this to Theo's excellent summary on tilapia: They are a very good eating fish. Try some fillets from the supermarket. They are getting quite popular.

Meadowlark has frequently stated that he can buy CC for $1/lb at the store, too cheap to bother raising any since he's not that crazy about catfish. The last two price checks I ran at supermarkets here, Tilapia was about 1/2 the price of CC (for frozen fillets).

I can understand CC being cheaper down South, due to all the catfish farms, but why would (commercial) Tilapia be cheaper up North?

I would sure like to find that store. Whole (cleaned) CC were $3.59# yesterday at the local market and filet's were $4.29. The price has nearly doubled in the last two years here in central Texas. I tried the tilapia filet's and they are not on my list as a favorite fish to eat, although they were not bad.

CC are more expensive in ga. to purchase at the grocery store--tilapia are really mild fish that are excellent baked or broiled--fried catfish 1/2lb to 1 1/2 lb size are much better eating but being fried are not as good for your health. catfish fillets are good if cut off of 1 1/2lb to 3 lb fish but once you get above that size to me the big cats are only good if "chunked" for nuggets or stew. we used to set trot lines and jugs for catfish on sinclair and oconee in georgia in the 70s and 80s before the lakes were too crowded and seadoos struck. after a few years it got where we would take pictures of our catfish over 10 lbs and release them--not worth the effort to clean them for most of the meat you got off of the really large ones was not fit to eat.

Theo,
Might be because there is an ever increasing number of tilapia exported to the US each year. Almost all of the tilapia and shrimp grown by my neighbors are sold to US buyers.

I kid you not, PFF.

Take a drive on H59 through Livingston. You will see several roadside businesses which sell cats for $1.25 per pound (up from the $1 per pound I quoted over a year ago). Off the main road you can usually find them even cheaper. Come on by my place, I'd be most happy to point them out to you...in fact, I'll see if I can get you some phone numbers.

Since fish trucks were disparaged on here many months back, I've been going around to area feed stores to check them out, watch how they do business, and observe what people are buying.

I was at Livingston Feed this past Friday from 1:00 to 2:00 and the fish truck was selling live 11 inch channels right off the truck for $89 per hundred. I'm not a channel guy, so don't know the weights, but I'd guess that isn't much over $1 per pound. By the way, they were selling them by the hundreds to young and old pond owners alike. Their most popular fish seemed to be the channels in the 6 inch size which they were selling for $33 per hundred. I saw thousands of them carried out in oxygen bags on their way to happy ponds. The prices are published in the local newspaper.

Must be supply and demand?

In some local Houston area stores, Tilapia are sold "on the hoof" live. I've had a couple of guys ask me why I don't buy them for my ponds...the answer is very simple...those fish are chemically treated to be all males, not reproduce, and grow faster than normal. Be careful about buying any such fish for your ponds...not to mention personal consumption.