Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Tilapia...not yet!

I know it may take a longer frost to kill them, but I am sure glad I wait every year to have my Tilapia delivered. Tonight it will get down in the low thirties and there is a frost warning. I am still 10-14 days away from Tilap delivery from Overton's. I'll sleep better tonight.

Snipe wasn't very smart.. He turned 300 3-4" Tilapia loose then got 7" of snow and 2 nights in the low teens-on top of 64 deg water.. 40 even at 3ft after busting a hole in surface ice to stick probe through. Sleep well Zep!

I went about 4 yrs getting mine on April fools day but I wait now till June 1st and looking for larger sized Tp. No problem in those 4 yrs other than I think my lmb were snacking on them because they are adults but smaller sized than what I have gotten in June.
Snipe, I had a lesson when i got my first Tp and that was my lmb and hsb were too small to snack on them and I had Tp by the truckloads after they spawned and nothing to eat them.

I put 50# of tilapia in and never saw them again..... snacks for the LMB and these were breeding size.....removed a 7# to my neighbors pond angora broke off three times

There is high mortality of tilapia fry and fertilized eggs when water temps fall below 67F. This has been found in the laboratory where everything favors survival. As temperatures rise above 68F, mortality decreases and approaches maximum survival above 75F. There is really no way to get a head start. Until one's water is above 70F he isn't making baby TP. If stocked early, there is risk that some adults are lost before they are reproducing well. The adults that are at greatest risk are the females because they are smaller. Because they are not very fecund ... losing females which usually comprise no more than 33% of stocked weight would be very detrimental to forage production. Everyone would be wise to follow Zep's lead and wait until their water warms to a temperature they can breed successfully in.

The table below depicts the survival of eggs to hatching. The hatch rate at 68F is only 25%. The reference for this table is this paper.

26 degrees right now and it snowed all day yesterday. Only reason the snow didn't stick is because the ground is above freezing and the temps were in the mid 30's. Freeze advisory from 1pm Tuesday until 1pm Thursday. Forget about getting any fruit locally this year, all the trees blossomed already.

We learned our lesson, we now don't stock Tilapia until after Mothers Day weekend.

That's when the doors come off our UTV for the warm season.