Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species My tilapia arrived!

Cat, the eggs are white and about the size of millet seeds. It is very rare a nest building male will tolerate any fish other than a "ready to lay" female near the nest. At 4", if you catch the female in the act, the 200 or so eggs a 4" fish will lay are easily visible. I only watched the one spawn and video taped it. All other times, I would see females holding eggs and would wait 10 more days to strip the hatched fry from her and move them to a 10g aquarium with filter sponge wrapped around the external filter intake tube to prevent fry being sucked into the filter and growing there.

Ok the Tilapia we purchased this year were not as large as the ones we got last year so I have they work out.

I kept some of the smaller fish and put them in my tank. They ranged from 3-7 inches.

What size should I expect these fish to be in say 3-4 months from now?


We were told they start spawning at 4 inches but I have not seen any signs that they have.

How big were the fish you purchased last year, and how large did they get?

If you have the same biomass, and are feeding the same, I'd expect about the same growth.

I gave up being a voyeur. They just wouldn't perform.

All the fish went into the ponds and the aquaponics tank.

We'll see what happens. The FHMs in the aquaponics tank have done their thing. Hopefully, the tilapia will get the same urge.

Last year they were half pound to 2 pounds, most went into ponds but saved a few. They were busy spawning most summer so maybe that made a difference in their growth.

I also only fed them around 2-5 times a day.

This year I want to add a feeder and try to feed them smaller amounts every 1-2 hours between the times of 6am-9pm.

They have been eating like crazy so maybe if they get to eat more often I can get some over a pound or so.

Rex is definitely a master breeder when it comes to his tilapia. I have to bow down and acknowledge his abilities in optimizing his species of specialty. By the way Rex, 1.5lbs of weight gain in 6 months is considered as optimal growth. However, you can actually push the envelop to 2.5lbs in 7 months when the "perfect conditions" present themselves. I've finally have that chance to see that perfect conditions in motion this past year.

I hope to get a few spawns this year so I can move them to a pond that is void of any fish. We want to experiment with it with some Tilapia from fry-fingerling stage with a feeder setup to see how large we can get them before it gets too cold to kill them.

My dad is worried about how we will get them out, I said we can try a few netting options such as Fyke, Throw, Seine as well as snag what we can. We could even go as far as draining it down since it is not that deep nor would we be killing anything anyway.

Use floor scrubber pads and poultry netting with air coming up from the bottom. Worked for two years now.