Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations talpia eating fish food

i got 25 lbs of talpia from overton in may, algae was already out of control, i have no aeration, thought i would add talpia to chemical control, now i notice a pair coming to eat my purina game fish chow, hope they don't change their taste for algae. dlee5@netzero.net

They won't. The odds are they were raised on floating catfish food. My Tilapia are happy to eat the fish food, but they are still doing a wonderful job keeping the filamentous down to the lowest level ever for this time of year.

I am not sure what chemical control you are using. I do wonder if it might harm Tilapia which are consuming the algae. I'll bet others here have had experience with such a combined apporach, though.
Lou

Odds are they won't be the only ones to find the feeder. You now have a choice to make. 1) Continue feeding and get the tilapia big & fat for maximum breeding now, increase your numbers, then make a massive dent later on down the line by turning off the feed. 2) Hit the filamentous hard now by turning off the feeder. 3) DO NOTHING

My feeder will stay on, but I'm interested in weight gain 1st, filamentous is a distant 2nd.

Tilapia are hard to over feed. I believe that tilapia feed almost all day on plant matter. When I was feeding large amounts of high protein mine were all fat, with a roll just behind their gill line and I had no algae. When a poacher removed about 50% of my large tilapia I had an algae build up the next day. I stopped feeding for that day and by next morning the algae was gone. So I would say there is a balance, at least in my pond there was. Watch the algae and feed accordingly, also, it never hurts to catch a fish occasionaly to measure your progress.

Rad, I'm really hating this "poacher" that you keep referring to in some of your posts.

Perhaps a field trip to Thailand, by a select group of PB Forum members, is in order to halt the actions of this infidel?

I am experiencing the same thing. Tilapia are eating the game fish chow but not with the same vigor as other fish. This is the first time I have stocked Tilapia and I am really enjoying watching them cruise around the shoreline eating the algae. I am very pleased with the results. Pond is looking good and the Tilapia are growing fast.

david lee,

I have observed significant reductions in the Tilapia's consumption of algae when the pond is artificially fed. I've estimated about a 50% reduction in Tilapia effectiveness at algae control with artificial feeding. I compensate by higher initial stocking rates(up to double) in a pond with artificial feeding to get the same algae control. These observations are substantiated by
SRAC publication as shown below:

http://srac.tamu.edu/tmppdfs/11435110-283fs.pdf

It is kind of a "double whammy", i.e. artificial feeding adds nutrients to the water, which promotes algae growth and the other whammy is that artificial feeding reduces the effectiveness of the Tilapia at algae control because the Tilapia eat the pellets instead of natural food, i.e. algae.

You can compensate for this by increasing stocking rates of Tilapia or reducing feeding.

Of course, the other side of this question involves eating Tilapia. My Tilapia that have been fed exclusively on natural food are not palatible whereas those fed or supplemented with artificial feed are great eating. It's all about choices.