Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species Blue tilapia

Got some of these guys last week from Rex. Great guy, and the fish are doing great. Caught quite a few today. I was having no luck catching them, then came inside, and tied a fly that looked like a floating fish pellet. I am a poor fly tier, but even I can tie a reasonable representation of a pellet. Then we started hammering them. They are quite strong fighters. Much more impressive than a bluegill of similar size. I am very excited about these fish. I am building a 2500 gallon tank in my greenhouse to over winter a large amount of broodstock. I happen to have a wood burning furnace, and an adding the hot water coil to heat the tilapia tank, as well as running water coils through our raised beds to heat the soil for year around growth. The tilapia tank will be recirculating during the winter, but will be switched to a flow through system (drawing water from the pond) during summer. I will also, stock the pond itself yearly with tilapia. I am also thinking of a good use of excess stock. In my area of Ohio we have lots of catfish pay lakes. They stock huge flatheads, and huge blue cats. They sell bait to fishermen, typically chubs, and bluegills. Well if tilapia turn out to make decent catfish bait, I might have an outlet. They should be easy for the paylake to maintain, require no chillers, should last well on a hook, should last well in a bait bucket. Also they will die in the winter, so when the fishermen dump their excess bait, they will not effect the forage base long term. The paylake might also get the added benefit of supplemental food from the tilapia, as well as filamentous algae control. This all depends on whether they make a decent bait, though I would expect that anything that is lively will draw the attention of a large flathead. I am also hoping that I might be able to market a few through a local hatchery for an addition to grass carp for algae control. Even city folk with Koi ponds might enjoy the benefits of tilapia for algae control. Might even be able to get quite a price premium for them considering they sell White Amur for about 14 bucks a pop.
Then of course there is the primary use for home food production. I am hoping that these guys live up to my expectations as far as growth goes. My pond was intended to be a food stockpile. Could harvest some food no matter how broke we are, and with the current state of the economy, this might just become important. Seems that tilapia should greatly exceed the growth of other panfish, with less outside input. Fertilizer in the form of manure is more easily available to me from my livestock, than is pelleted feed. So ideally the tilapia should be very low input.
If anyone has comments, or suggestions please let me have them. This system is in the design phase, the greenhouse is built, but the infrastructure is not yet in place. I will be taking a couple weeks off of work in late July to do the build. I will take photos, and document the build in the appropriate sub forum. Wish me luck.

Sounds like a good plan. Several sales markets could be available to you. Overwintering them in a greenhouse is good use of some unused space plus waste water could be used for plant nutrients.

So will they feed on manure?

My understanding is that the manure will grow bacteria, and they will eat the bacteria, and the manure as a byproduct. The manure also causes an algae bloom, and they can filter feed on the planktonic algae. Mine might be fed some manure, duckweed, garden scraps, aquamax. I hope to use them like hogs. Convert waste into flesh.

brier, before slicing and dicing them I'd purge them in clean clear water for 3 days first, changing water once a day.

Thanks esshup, I have read about that. I am interested in trying a freshly harvested tilapia in the near future, and seeing how it tastes, compared to the large harvest later in the fall in which I plan on purging them. Have you by chance tried them both ways? To be honest, store bought tilapia is not fishy enough for me. Do non-purged tilapia taste bad or just fishy? I suppose I will find out soon enough, my younger son is dying to eat one. One thing I am wondering about the purge, I will need to use city water, and it will be unheated, and rather cold, what if anything have you done about this problem? I would rather not heat the water, and the water changes are going to bring in more cold water. Maybe it is no big deal, since they are nearing the end of their lives anyway. Of course I will dechlorinate.Thanks for your input.

Put the water in a 5 gallon bucket with the outside painted black and leave it out in the sun for a few hours. Maybe run a cheap aerator in it to help blow off any chemicals.

Thanks, txelen, but my fall tilapia harvest is projected to be around 50 pounds or more, so I am looking to purge them in a 700 gallon tank, so the 5 gallon bucket would only be a drop in the bucket, so to speak. This may be more water than I actually need with good aeration, and water changes, but it is what I have. May only need to fill it 3/4's

brier:

I haven't tasted any Tilapia from the pond. Last year I think the LMB did all the taste testing before I did. This year there is at least one that would make a meal for a couple of people. I'll bet it's 14"-15" now.

City (treated) water would be the cleanest to purge with. If you don't want to use a dechlorinator, like Sodium Thiosulfate, just aerate it for a coulpe days to get the chlorine out before putting the fish in it. When it comes time to clean the harvest, chill kill the tilapia in ice water.

Is there a reason to Chill Kill them first as compared to clean them fresh when they are alive?

It's easier to clean and fillet a dead fish - it won't be flopping all over - plus it's a little more humane than carving up a living thing!

Well I was aware of that since most of my fish are kept on ice (especially this time of year to prevent spoilage).

I was just thinking that maybe there was something special about the Tilapia that I was unaware of

Has anyone experimented with trying one straight out of the pond that has been free range without any sort of feed, and compared it to one that was in a grow out tank and ate nothing but feed.

Neither one was purged, just wondering if you could tell a difference between the two of them.


Also does anyone have experience with the different types of Tilapia and how each one is different in taste or if a person can really tell if they have all been raised in the same environment?

Is it the pond water that produces an undesirable taste in tilapia, or the algae and vegetation that the tilapia eat in the pond that is the problem?

Would a possible easy solution be to put a fish cage into the pond, catch a bunch of tilapia and toss them in, and just let them sit there without eating for a few days?

I know that tilapia are often low in omega-3 due to their diet, maybe they could be fed some kind of food enriched with desirable nutrients while in cages purging?

Water is pure and taseless/odorless so if any taste were to trasnfer to a fish, it would have to be from ingestion or absorption.

Yes, tilapia are lower than some other fish in the again popular Omega 3 craze in miracle substances to eat.

There was also a big deal made about tilapia in a very flawed and now ignored "Fear" study from Wake Forest. It was flawed in that it made claims about tilapia having high levels of Omega-6...Later the study added the cause...the feed the RESEARCHERS were using was the cause, not the tilapia itself. This study was also done on a small relatively small number of fish, from unknown/undisclosed sources, unknown/ undisclosed variety, plus a whole host of other control issues that tainted the results. It was great for news headlines till all the problems rendered but it was meaningless for use as research fact. How many times in the past 30 years has eating an egg been good or bad for us?

To the best of my knowledge and the research done on the matter, tilapia flesh does not retain "off Flavors" from consumed foods if purged in clean clear waters for a minimum of 3 days. Tilapia are the oldest known farmed fish in history.

I wonder if you could feed them something high in Omega 3 where they would retain it so we could benefit from it.

Just curious.

Thanks

Or you could just take an omega-3 supplement and not worry about your fish. Probably easier, cheaper, and more effective.

I was under the impression Tilipia were excellent for Duckweed control. In fact, they have gigantic fish farms in third world countries where that is the main feed, and they eat it all and want more. I would think an excellent market would be for pond owners looking for biological control of tough to deal with weeds and algae. But then I read in my newest pondboss magazine I got today that Tilipia haven't proven effective on duckweed. Maybe they don't control duckweed, they just eat it until it is gone and need more in farm ponds.

If I was in Texas I would love to have a Tilipia pond, just to see for myself. If I were in a third world country, I'd have them, peacock bass and probably a dozen or so mistresses. But here I am in NorCal, and the only tilipia I see are in Asian food markets.

Well, the problem with feeding fish Omega 3's or any other nutrient for that matter is that although it "might" increase the amount of that supplement in the fish, it probably won't increase it to a level that is biologically significant (or cost effective).

We have these same kind of problems in pretty much all forms of animal agriculture.

For example... (totally hypothetical with bs numbers for illustrative purposes)

Fish 1 who eats "regular feed" has 0.1 grams of omega-3 fatty acid per serving in their meat.

Fish 2 who eats an "Enhanced omega-3" feed has 0.2 grams of omega-3 fatty acid per serving in their meat


But lets say the daily recommended value for Omega-3 for human consumption is 10 grams, otherwise you don't get the benefits.

Even though Fish 2 has two times the amount of omega-3, you are still a long way off from what you would need to make it biologically significant or in other words useful.

In the grand scheme of things going from .1 grams omega 3 to .2 grams omega 3 isn't worth the expense or hassle when 10grams is the mark (again, hypothetical).

But then again, we know less about fish nutrition than anything else we raise for food (with the exception of catfish maybe) so maybe it wouldn't turn out that way.

But on the other hand, since we know so little, it would be more cost effective to just take an omega-3 supplement. Chances are you would be wasting your money trying to feed omega-3's to your fish.

I have read a lot about the health benefits of grass-fed beef versus feedlot beef. I wonder whether there are similar benefits to fish that eat a natural diet versus fish that eat mainly commercial fish food?

Is anyone aware of any studies comparing perhaps CC raised on floating pellets versus CC in unfed ponds, in terms of cholesterol/fat/protein makeup? Google isn't turning anything up.

Tilapia are tolerant of salinity. Would purging them in salt water be better than purging in fresh water? This would probably kill many parasites.

PF, if you were to move 2 States East you could have all the brides that you want - forget about mistresses.

Txelen,

Here is the problem with what you are proposing.

It takes a lot longer to raise a cow on grass than it does to stick them in the feedlot and shove cereal grains down their throat.

In addition to altering the % fat / nutrient composition, what you feed the animal drastically influences the taste.

I was raised like a lot of people my age (early 20's) on feedlot beef.

As part of my animal science curriculum, I have been forced to learn stuff about meat that I never really wanted to know. Grass fed may be more healthy, but to me it tastes terrible and to me there is very little flavor because of reduced marbeling / fat. But again, I have a bias because I was raised on feedlot beef.

The USDA's cattle rating system (as far as prime, choice, select, etc) is designed to favor those animals that have a higher degree of marbeling. This was done in an effort to try and create a "consistent" product that the consumer could depend on. When you throw grass fed animals into the mix, they are at an extreme disadvantage and the eating experience is not what the consumer was expecting.

I guess what I am trying to say is that a new system will probably have to be created or "natural" grass fed animals (namely the producers) will continue to struggle in the marketplace.

So this leads us to your question about channel cats.

Txelen, when most scientists (who are oftentimes funded by commercial organizations) propose research, they are limited to studying what the funding is available for.

The commercial catfish industry is interested in Growth / high catfish turn over rates. It would take much longer to grow out the catfish, even if there are benefits to deviating their feed from its current grain composition. So you can see why there is very little research on CC that are grown in a more "natural" way. It just doesn't put more money in the pocket of the intensive catfish farm operation.

I can tell you one thing from experience though...

The catfish that is fed cereal grains tastes DRASTICALLY different than those that are raised on natural forage.

In my opinion, those that are raised naturally taste VERY fishy. Those that are raised on the grain taste well, not very fishy at all.

Taking an educated guess, I would say that those catfish raised in an unfed pond, as you have put it, would have the same protein make-up, but less fat. There would probably be a statistically relevant difference in fatty acid composition (unsaturated vs saturated).

The problem with bringing a natural fed catfish to market is that people are getting used to the commercial grain fed catfish. The big wig intensive operations don't want to "fix" it if it isn't broken or if the public isn't boycotting their current product.


The catfish industry is so new (in relation to the other animal agriculture industries) that they haven't even figured out a close to optimal feed as far as growth rate is concerned. It will probably be awhile before we see intensive studies of grain fed vs natural fed.

The research doesn't put money into anyones pocket. You will however see research in the near future where catfish are being Genetically Engineered so that their meat composition is altered in a way that is "healthier" for us. That way the farmers can keep feeding what they are feeding, and can boast of a new and improved product. There is money in it for all involved with this route.

As said, taste is in response to demand. The fish farmers feed a soy type pellet that produces a product with virtually no taste.

Why? Consumers were found to like the idea of eating fish but disliked the fishy taste. Thus, a lot of tartar sauce is sold to jazz up the bland taste.