Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Had a huge Tilapia hatch yesterday

Blaine -
I would seperate them right away. While the adults MIGHT leave them alone, it's more likely they'll eat them or at least most of them.

You really want to try and get all of your females to spawn at about the same time. Fry just a week or two younger in age will be eaten by the older ones. Tilapia are highly cannabalistic until about 8 weeks of age, which means that you'll have to maintain seperate nursery tanks until the young of year are a safe size to mix with each other. It's a real pain if you have females spawning randomly.

There are two things you can try to get them "synched":

1. Strip any females holding eggs in their mouths before beginning. Seperate males and females for about 10-14 days. When you combine the fish again, place on an 18 hour light and 6 hour dark lighting schedule.

2. Control by manipulating the light cycle. Strip any females holding eggs in their mouths before beginning. Prevent any light getting to the fish for 10-14 days only allowing for about 10 minutes a day of light for feeding. Following this, provide light for 18 hours followed by 6 dark and continue the 18L 6D cycle going forward.

It's a lot easier to deal with hundreds of fry/fingerlings that are the same age and size than it is to deal with a few dozen small, a few dozen medium, a few dozen large, etc.