Jeff,
I never said they survived... only that I did not see tons of floating fish.
My pond is also ice covered.
The tilapia are cichlids from Africa... I believe the Rift Lakes region. I am very confident that they did die and that their biomass will release nutrients back into the pond. If you use chemicals then the excess nutrients that fueled the FA growth also gets released back into the pond when the FA dies. The thing I like about the tilapia is that at least some of the excess nutrients get converted to tilapia that are eaten by my other fish. Ideally I need to find a consistent way to capture the tilapia at the end of the season so that I can actually remove the excess nutrients in my pond.
If you think about it, your pond is nothing more than a really large planted aquarium. The key is to achieve a balanced ecosystem, i.e nutrients introduced = nutrients removed. My plan is to remove / keep out the plants that I don't want and add the plants I do want in the pond. Once the "good" plants get established they will consume the nutrients and if I manage the fish population correctly there shouldn't excess nutrients to feed the "bad" plants. Achieving a balanced ecosystem will ultimately control/ eliminate the FA in the long term.
I will let everyone know in the Spring if I have SUPER tilapia that have adapted to our Ohio winters, LOL!
Take care and God bless!!
sean
