I cleaned 6 tilapia today. They were definately having survival problems in a cage at 46.8F. A red one was dead on the bottom of the cage; eye color was still pretty natural. I also cleaned it. I found them a little easier to fillet than larger YP and similar to BG. A couple things that I noted were:
1. The peritonemum of the blues is dark colored. It is easy to scrape off the inside of the 'belly flap' with a knife. Inner abdominal wall of reds is light colored.
2. I found the skin-scale layer to be thiner on the tilapia compared to BG, LMB, YP. Removing skin/scales is not quite as easy sincde it is thinner compared to YP.
3. I had no trouble cutting through the rib pin bones which I thought were thiner abd easier to cut compared to in YP.
4. So far I have not found the red meat to be strong flavored at least on individuals less than 10".
Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/07/10 07:23 PM.
