Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Tigre and Striper Bass Progress Pics

I'm not a tilapia expert, so I don't know if they eat feed or what baits are best. I caught them on wigglers down in Florida. And I don't believe they will interfere with your BG. They will take pressure off them like your FHM have been.

Makocly
What's your take on these fish? Did't mean to jump in here and load a bunch of my junk on your topic. How big a pond you have over there in El Campo? Bass looking good. With the sping and summer coming up they should grow like crazy. That what I'm hoping any way.

PawPaw, they do everything but jump out on the bank and mow the grass.

Yeah, they will eat fish food but don't make much of a cost impact. I consider them just about the ultimate forage fish. I question whether they will make it 12 months; even in your area.

Dave
Thanks for the input. The grass mowing is alotted to my three boys. If you want to fish here you mow here. They are all grown and love to watch thier kids fish. Looking forward to a good season at the pond. Think I'll go get mawmaw a new net.

Eric, I think I should correct you on this suggestion. Pound of tilapia for stocking is based on an 8" average sized fish--or roughly 3 per pound. If using a 5 inch fish, it will be more fecund than a larger one and you would actually want fewer fish or the same "pound" equivelant number stocked. ie 30 5" fish would be the same as 10 pounds of 8 inchers.

Rex, that's interesting and it creates, in my mind, something of a dilemma. How many of the newly stocked 5 inch fish are going to be a good meal for a 16 inch bass? If you're getting them early in the season, it seems tough to calculate the effectiveness when used as forage.

I thought the largest LMB in the pond were 11 inches.

Rex my suggestion was tilapia at least 5 inches (based on max 11 inch LMB) and use 10 to 15 lbs no matter if they were 5 or 8 inches. Difference in numbers per size offset by anticipated predation on smaller fish.

I am not sure he can find 8 inch tilapia in TX in May when temps are good (may be earlier near his location). My guess is he will do well to find 5 inch fish. Start calling now looking for them.

Eric, I'm talking in generalities regarding stocking sizes.

I thought at first I had mis-read Rick's info.

Glad to see I didn't give him bad advice.

Dave I understood your point and agree.

Folks, I edited the pic to a real Tigre Bass. I guess in my stocking euphoria I got mixed up and forgot that I had bought some BG that same day.

Now that pic definitely shows a LMB and not a BG. Very nice looking little one too...

Rick,

No problem at all with the direction of the thread. My pond is 1.25 acres. Here is a link showing the evolution of my pond.

Makoclay's Pond Thread

I had never considered tilapia before but now I think I'll try them. I do not fully understand the discussion about the number of tilapia to stock. I don't understand about the 5" fish being more fertile than the same poundage of 8" fish but I guess that means that I'd get more quantity of 5" fish given the same amount of pounds of 8" fish. Shouldn't I be concerned that the fish would eaten before they had a chance to reproduce?

Can a 5" talipia fish reproduce? If I stocked them in April would they reproduce before they were eaten by the bass? If I buy 20 pounds of tilapia (roughly 80 fish) would I need to be selective to ensure that I had the right mix of males and females?

On a related note, when I worked in Australia I used to eat farm raised tilapia and I loved it! It is the only freshwater fish that I truly like to eat (never had crapie though). I would love nothing else than to be able to catch a 4-5 pound fish to feed the family one night.

Thanks all!!

See this.


Southern Regional Aquaculture Center

Tilapia - Life History and Biology

http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=11

http://srac.tamu.edu/tmppdfs/3766418-283...65ad134f32211b2


Reproduction

In all Oreochromis species the male

excavates a nest in the pond bottom

(generally in water shallower than 3

feet) and mates with several females.

After a short mating ritual the

female spawns in the nest (about

two to four eggs per gram of brood

female), the male fertilizes the eggs,

and she then holds and incubates the

eggs in her mouth (buccal cavity)

until they hatch. Fry remain in the

female�s mouth through yolk sac

absorption and often seek refuge in

her mouth for several days after they

begin to feed.

Sexual maturity in tilapia is a function

of age, size and environmental

conditions. The Mozambique tilapia

reaches sexual maturity at a smaller

size and younger age than the Nile

and Blue tilapias. Tilapia populations

in large lakes mature at a later

age and larger size than the same

species raised in small farm ponds.

I've been talking to my fishery The Bait Barn in Bryn Texas.
He hope to have me some 5 to 8" mid next month. I'll put about 100 in my small pond. thanks guy for the information. What size do they grow to ? 2lbs 15 to 20" I'm planning a grandkid pond small bass large gills 3/4 acre pond. Next year I'll take out all bass 16" long 2.5 pound. and gill 10" and smaller. I think this will be good for the kids. I can just see my 4 yr old grandbabie hooked up with a 4pd bass think that be a little much. 2ld gill or bass and lot of them will be fun.
Makoclay
Nice pond keep me up dated maybe we can get together this summer and have a cup of coffee near Bass Pro

We have plenty of tilapia and will start selling them in April. Ours are a mix of fish from 4" on the small end up to 10" on the large end. We have been pushing for true mozambiques out of our stock and believe that our genetics are superior to most any and all of the "mozambiques" being sold in TX.

A true mozambique will mature at a smaller size and spawn more often than a blue, nilotica, or hybrid. They will also die closer to that 55deg mark than the others, which might survive to 48deg. The above characteristics are key to making a tilapia stocking program work as well as possible.

Last week I talked with a guy that used to raise Tilapia for commercial reasons. He said that he could overwinter them here in Indiana, outside, but he ran well water continually into the ponds. I'm guessing he had Blues.

Gents,

The more read about Tilapia, the more I wonder if it isn't all too good to be true. I don't understand how a fish can be a good forage fish as well as survive to be big enough to provide food fare for the dinner table.

Is it a forage fish or a recreational fish? Do they reproduce so well that their offspring produce forage while some of them live long enough to become catching size? If all of this is true, I agree it would be great. It just seems too good to be true.

In the right situation it works well. There are 3 possible negative factors IMO.

First once started you will need to continue stocking every year just like any other pond capacity booster ( feed, fertilizer, etc).

Second if they overwinter they can overpopulate and stunt and or take up to much carrying capacity .

Third if they are to numerous they can overeat the pond and cause some negative impact on BG size structure (bad year class). This of course assumes insufficient predation on forage species.

Mozambique tilapia is both forage and/or "recretional" fish.
Here's proof - my Lady and a Overton stocked 3lb tilapia:

Eric, Makoclay,

Eric, I agree that the potential for negetive impact exists with tilapia. That is why I wanted to point out the possible problem with stocking a smaller fish by the "pound". Like Todd, I do not "grade" the fish and some smaller ones are stocked. Stocking higher numbers of fish that can avoid predation will produce far higher numbers of offspring which could consume too much plant life and result in insufficiant protective cover for the YOY of all species.

I will stock to meet my customers goals and try to steer those goals to reach the 20% vegetation coverage. As to maturity, Mozambique's mature only a week earlier than the Blue. The Blue has a far more varied diet than all other tilapia species along with a greater tolerance for cold, but in Texas, the only legal choice is the Moz. I also make it VERY clear that tilapia in a pond used as a forage fish, MUST be thought of as a supplemental feeding program. Once Tilapia are used for 2-3 years and have artificially raised the fish bio-load in a pond, it must be used annually or the increased load cannot be sustained. Tilapia do not "remove" unused nutrients from a pond, they just make it available and move it further up the food chain into fish biomass. If a pond owner does not remove fish, and those nutrients, a fish kill will still occur evetually, but on a larger scale in terms of size and numbers of fish.

Makoclay, The beauty of tilapia sounding "too good to be true" is that unlike almost everything in pond management taking time to see results, Tilapia results are seen quickly and are often very profound. No, they are NOT a magic bullet, but darn close to it!

Ok reading all the input I think I know the direction I need to go in my little pond. � acre (Tell me if I�m wrong)
I stocked it last fall with bass and bluegills (Hybrid) I added a few straight gills about 5� long last month. The direction I�m wanting to go is small bass 2lds and down with big gills 1 to 1 � lds. Grandkids pond. A 4lb bass on a 4yr old line might just be too much.
With this in mine I think I should stay with the fish in the pond and next year start removing bass over 16� should be about 2 � lbs and all gill 8� and down. I�ll watch the bluegill numbers as they are along with a few minnow will be the primary forge for the bass. I�m feed them all twice a day morning and evening. Question?? How many 2lb bass and 1lb gills can this pond sustain? Is this goal and approach right?
To old but to do this one time.

Are the LMB feed trained (eating pellets). If not then IMO you don't have enough forage for them even for skinny LMB. I would add about 7 lbs of 8 inch tilapia. See how it works and next year if the BG are doing well and have filled the capacity consider not adding tilapia.

will then I guess I'll be going up the road next month and see the boys at Overtonfisheries thier about an hour up 45 from me.
Think that help cleanup some of the pond junk too. Now that I'm think about this your right on giving bluegill and bass a little extra food and time be for the girls start thier slater. LOL

I have read enough to get into the tilapia game as well. I think I'll go with 20 pounds for my 1.25 acre pond. That should have me in pretty good shape.

The hijacking of this thread proved to be beneficial!!!

thanks everybody

To further answer your question about tilapia being forage fish or table fare; it is the stockers which should be large enough to avoid predation that grow into table fare. The offspring of the original stockers go on to provide forage for your predators.

-HH