Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Can talapia be raised above ground swimming pools?

OK, so two PB members sell Tilapia on ebay and ship.

I may just get 50 or so fingerling's for something to do this winter. I wanted to do an aquaponics trial next year. A greenhouse cover for my garage in a box is around 120.00. That would not be too expensive for a trial and error op.

My 1800 gallon pool came Friday and I spent all day yesterday setting it up and taking down the old 5000 gallon pool. I can't believe how much nicer it is. It's the perfect size. Low enough so you can sit at a table and hang your feet over the water. We were joking last night that all we had to do was put a hibachi on the table and we could catch cook and eat them right there.

Here is a picture of both pools so you can see the size difference and another close up



I would like to set up another small pool where the old leaky one was for crawdads or freshwater shrimp. If this works out I am also thinking about raising tropical aquarium fish instead of food fish or maybe koi.

Steve,

Where do you get all the energy? Oh wait, you're probably a young whipper snapper and I'm an old man.

I don't know where I get my energy from.

In the future I don't think I'm going to be messing with using one pump and manifolding all the barrels together. It is actually cheaper to buy five separate pumps now that I found fosterandsmithaquatics and run a separate pump to each barrel with a garden hose. It's actually the only way to go. It's a real pain in the butt having to cut and re glue all that pvc just to move a barrel. Those plastic barrels aren't heavy at all and if I didn't have to glue them it would be really easy to move them to get new pools established. My swimming pool hose fits perfectly into the fitting on the bottom and will drain any barrel in just a few seconds from anywhere I want to put a pool in my back yard and long enough to reach into the alley. Makes flushing them a breeze.

By far the hardest part was leveling the pool. I use sand that comes down our dirt road every time it floods my driveway, so it was a two fold project. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had a wheel barrow but I had to hand carry five gallon buckets by hand. Did I mention I had to carry them... by hand?

Steve,

You are on a roll... Time to make things a little more complicated and rewarding... I think you should be building an aquaponics system (if someone hasn't suggested it already).


See this video for more details...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqS9ZXUPz2k

I am in the process of making a really really tiny scale one with a 70 gallon stock tank and some bluegill.

one thing at a time

I lost my first two tilapia today. The water temperature was just below 90 degrees and the fish were acting more aggressive than I've ever seen before. Both were medium sized fish. Probably females. I have a dozen flower pots on the bottom that I thought might induce mating but no 3 inch pieces for them to hide like in the tank method. I'm not sure if that's the problem. I didn't rule out water conditions. I had been feeding them a lot the last three days. Ammonia was under .25 PPM so that's not the problem. I did a 3/4 water change any way just to be safe, which is not really 3/4 anymore with all those barrels but close. I mostly drained them to see what was going on but the started acting normal as the sun started going behind the mountain at the same time. Any ideas what probably killed them?

Unforutnately I have no experience with tilapia -- yet. So I can't help you there.

What are your nitrites at?

Surfsteve,I'm curious as to how many males are in there with them?

Tilapia females rarely fight....Males mouth fight (looks like they're kissing)....Males will destroy non-gravid and post spawning females by hitting them behind the gills.

Tilapia are NOT a social fish!!!!

Thanks Rainman, Thats about the same line of thinking I had. Now, what does non-gravid mean?? Non fry holding?

Non-gravid...without eggs.

You haven't been up and running for as long as it might take a tank to fully mature and cycle properly. I think it will take awhile longer for your biological filtration to take care of the water.

I didn't know that tilapia were wife beaters rainman. Very interesting stuff!

I'm guessing I have about a 50/50 mix of male and females. Although only about 15 or 20 percent clearly look like males. Probably because they are too young yet. My nitrites were at zero. I changed all of the old water from the pool into the new pool and all of the filters. I washed the new liner with dawn and rinsed it but I could still smell a little plastic though it may have been coming from the outside, which I didn't wash. I don't think water quality was the problem. The belly of one of them was a little swollen and I wondered if she was full of eggs but she wasn't. The tail was a little chewed up on the other one and it's scales were a little chewed. I didn't pay attention to behind the gill area but now that you mention it I think it was a little lighter color and may have been chewed up. I could see the big males were clearly doing the aggression. I have seen them kissing before but yesterday they were going nuts. I am convinced it has to do with temperature. The pond is down to 75 degrees this morning but was almost 90 when all the aggression was going on and the two fish died. That's quite a fluctuation of temperature. I think that and the fact that there's not enough places for the small fish to hide is also a problem.

I'm planning on buying some 2 and 3 inch pvc pipe and cutting it into 8 inch lengths. This will give all the smaller fish a place to hide. The big fish have taken the flower pots and chase fish as they swim by. Is there anything else I can do to lower aggression? I am considering shade cloth to lower the temperature. But only as a last resort. I'm also trying to think of something to throw in the water to give them more places to hide. 3 inch pvc isn't cheap and it seems like such a waste to cut up good pipe. Metal would probably be bad for the water or I would start saving tin cans. What about drain pipe? It's 4 inches but it's cheap. What about tree branches? Would that mess up water quality?

Of all the choices listed, I'd go with the 4" drain pipe.

Steve, with the large amount of space, and the number of fish that you have. How many fish by the way? Don't you think that they can avoid aggression? Rex could probably answer this better, but my understanding is that many fish allows the aggression to be spread out. So you have quite a number of fish, and quite a bit of space for them to retreat to. Just my guess, but maybe you should be more concerned about the new pool, could it have any treatments that make it unsafe? Or could your trace amounts of ammonia be taking a toll? You are doing well so far, and the loss of a couple fish is to be expected. But two in a day would lead me to think environment rather than aggression .

Swimming pools usually contain plasticizers that are toxic to fish. You can however condition the pool over time so this toxic issue is not a problem. A new pool would have to be conditioned.

They do make swimming pools that are "fish safe" for aquaculture purposes.

I'm sure the plasticizers from the new pool and the fact that the filters are still functioning way below capacity aren't helping but I think the aggression was due to high temperature and primarily the fact that there were places to mate but no places for the female fish to hide. I bought 4 pieces of three inch drain pipe and one piece of 4 inch and cut them into 6 to 8 inch lengths. The bottom of the pool is covered with them and flower pots now and the fish are still swimming at high speed but I haven't noticed any of them attacking each other anymore.

I made the mistake of taking the thermometer out of the pool to see what the air temperature was. It was well above 120 in the sun and now the thermometer is stuck so I wont be able to measure the temp. till I get another one but I could easily take a shower with that water in the daytime. I am concerned how low it drops at night and hope that it wont be too cold for them under a dome this winter.

I'm thinking my next project should be crayfish. The nearest lake is a two hour drive and I'm thinking maybe of going out there one of these days with some wire and some screen and build some traps while I fish to see if I can haul some in to bring back and raise. Is it true that the common varieties will get 6 to 8 inches under ideal conditions?

The temp changes won't bother the tilapia. I've personally tossed them back into 85 degree water after keeping them for hours in water at 47 degrees with them eating 5 minutes later. The aggression is entirely normal....the bigger the male is the larger the territory he will defend.

ammonia on the other hand..........

My ammonia is low. The only times it ever went up was when I fertilized the pool with miracle gro and ammonium sulfate. I was keeping it between half and one PPM with the fertilizer. Once I accidently shot it up to 2ppm because I didn't wait long enough for the test to complete before adding ammonium sulfate. I've had my goldfish that high and the level returned to normal in a few days. The goldfish seemed fine but I didn't like the way the tilapia were looking after the first hour so I drained the pool and changed most of the water. They were only exposed a couple hours. I am thankful for having my half hp sump pump that can empty a pool in a matter of minutes. If I could find urea or some kind of non ammonia based fertilizer I would use it. The day I lost my two fish the ammonia was almost unmeasurable. I am feeding my fish cat food. I got one that floats with really small pellets that 80 percent of my fish can swallow whole. My latest strategy is to give them as much as they can eat for five minutes twice a day.

Another thing I am thankful for is my garden hose water timer. It has saved me a fortune. I can set it to top off my goldfish kiddie pool or as long as two hours which will fill my new pool half way. I was planning on hooking my pools up with floats that fill them but the timer is the way to go.

Tilapia can handle very high ammonia levels IF it builds up slowly, It rarely builds up slowly in RAS systems however!

Ammonia poisoning will cause blotches on the top of the head and make the fish look like it has a saddle on it. The fish will spin and swim like crazy in all directions and angles. They will also jump high out the water. Ammonia will also dissolve the gills, tail and dorsal fins.

PS....Urea is pure ammonia from urine.

Rex, you're amazing! Very good tip on amonia poisoning!!!

Thanks for the tips.

I do have a couple of Tilapia with blotches on their heads. But then I have one albino too. From the looks of the guys tank I bought them from I'd say they were raised in pretty filthy conditions. For the past week I've been feeding my fish heavily and the water seems to be staying clean. The very first time I tested our tap water the ammonia was almost 1/2 ppm. My neighbor happened to be talking to the water company and they told him that they added extra chlorine to the water for some reason or another but I guess it was just a freak occurrence. I've never been able to measure any ammonia since that day in the tap water.

It's been very cold the past few days and my fish haven't been coming up to feed in the mornings but they fed last night. It's how hard to believe how fast the water temperature dropped on Friday when the winds started blowing. I'll bet it cooled my pool from 95 to 65 in less than an hour.