Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations tilapia

From my experience as a manager of ponds in Texas, Tilapia often do not die every winter. I would put it at about 1 in 3 winters or so on the conservative side in central Texas. Further West and North it trends closer to every winter from what I have seen. And that still depends on the size, depth, severity of the winter, and location of your pond in the state. Smaller, shallower ponds tend to see them die more often than larger, deeper ones. I have not seen them negatively effect a bluegill population as long as there is an established bass population. Coppernose Bluegill like to eat tilapia just as much as largemouth bass do. I have heard bad things about tilapia and trophy bluegill ponds but I do not have first hand experience with that. I have a pond in South East Coastal Texas that has not had a complete tilapia kill in the last 4 years for certain. Its a big deep pond though with both aeration and a well to feed it. We saw the tilapia huddled around the well inlet one year and they somehow survived by staying close to that water which was about 65 degrees through the worst of the winter. Granted that was about three days with night time temperature barely below freezing. The tilapia are still not over populated and they have some tremendous largemouth as a result. There are a few individuals the size of dinner plates though. I'm talking about a tilapia that could feed a family of 8! I have also noticed that big tilapia prefer to hang around the feeder and not mess with filamentous while young of the year tilapia will put in some good work on any filamentous algae you may have. This is all purely anecdotal evidence based on what I have personally observed. As far as being worth the money, stocked at 10-20 pounds per acre Tilapia will quickly multiply in a pond. They spawn about every 20 or so days from what I have seen. Texas prices seem to range from about $16-20 per pound unless you can drive to a local tilapia farm and pick them up yourself. So stocking a 2 acre pond won't break the bank. I stock Mozambique tilapia, mixed sizes between 4-10 inches from a farm down around the Houston area that lets me specify that I want both males and females and I haven't had a problem with reproduction on a pond we stocked yet. Keep in mind that depending on what county you are in within Central Texas you may need a permit from Texas Parks and Wildlife to stock tilapia in the Conservation Zone which sort of runs west from I-35.