Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Blue Tilapia Survivability

I live in N.E. Florida at the beach with a 1 acre pond that I'm considering adding blue tilapia to. The water rarely goes below 55. Occaisionally, we have a cold snap that gets us into the 20s but by mid-day were are back in the 60's, at least.

Can anyone confirm that for this geographic area,tilapia will survive most winters?

Is this any cause of concern?

Thanks, I'm a newbee.

What are your goals for your pond?

Be careful, they could take over your pond if a lot of them survive a couple of winters.

SPLATT,
I live a few miles down the road from you. Blues will live fine in your pond and are abundant in most the local parks and drainage ponds in our area.
They can become a little overly abundant and you might need to do some adult removal on occasion depending on what you have as predators.
When we do get the occasional hard freeze you will have a die off but it typically does not kill all of them, if you have a well you can flow the water into a corner of the pond to create a warm water refuge you will have a high % of survival during the rare events..
Even the record breaking cold spell we had a few years ago that even killed local snook, tarpon and lots of tilapia didn’t clean them out.
If you like to eat tilapia they will get very large and make for a good source of meat for your table. Seining or cast nest netting is an easy way to harvest them in a pond. If your predators are not keeping them in check doing this sure should.
I have them in the pond I manage and they are a good source of food for my predators, I am glad they are there.

Even if the fish don't get cold enough to die, they will get slow enough to be eaten by your larger bass.

I wouldn't count on your bass being big enough to eat the largest tilapia, but hopefully they won't get too out of control.

If you want a species that won't survive you should try the moxambique tilapia.