Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Stocking Tilapia

I stocked my first Tilapia yesterday, 15 large males in my future male CNBG pond, 15 lbs in my new pond that’s covered in FA and 10 lbs of large in the old bass pond for forage. Overton's really has some nice fish and the red tilapias are meaner than a RES! Several of the large females were already brooding and had mouthfuls of babies. Here's a pic of a large red that stuck me pretty good.

FT, is that blood on your hand?

Sure is, mine.

Those fins are spikey and sharp. I had one flip out of the net, grazing my leg and it left 5 bloody puncture wounds.. I have red tilapia and seldom catch one. I have other tilapia to 7 pounds but the red,never get over 2 or 3. I don't know if that is their limit or they change color or what. I have never found a dead on. I see 1 to 10 red to nile tilapia in the fry and fingerlings and none in the larger fish.

FT, nice lookin' fish - Todd will be delivering ours Sunday.
Interesting about ALL male tilapia in future male BG pond. We were sucessful last year with all male tialpia in our HSB "grow-out" pond, since wanted for algae control only.

I didn't even mention it on the forum since was a new approach(to me anyway)and folks might think I was crazy - now there's two of us...

Shows once again, "it all depends".
CONGRATS!!!

I am hoping to swing by overtons in the next couple of weeks!! I am ready to get my pond legs going for the summer!!

Are the red tilapia FT got a color variant of Nile tilapia? Rad makes them sound like a different species; I thought only Nile were legal in TX.

These are the result of a mozambique/nile cross, then back crossed to pure mozambique for 12 generations, ending with pure mozambique again, so they tell me.

The red color was bred into these because they were originally intended for the food market. They just look better in the markets.

We'll see how they do this year.

Mozambiques are the only legal species in texas.

According to the SBAC info; http://govdocs.aquake.org/cgi/reprint/2003/705/7050040.pdf "The original red tilapias were genetic mutants." The ones we see today are as a result of cross breeding nile, blue or mozambique with the genetic mutants, they are aimed at the red snapper market.
Mine are crossing back, I will get some pictures. But, what I see is the limited growth, I would like to hear how yours do by the end of fall, FT.
They are a huge seller in Thai restaurants, favored over darker colored tilapia, taste the same to me. Must be that esthetic thing.

Rad, I stocked the males in the BG pond just to see how big they would get by November and will harvest, weigh them and update the post at that time.

Here are some of my tilapia, red, nile and mixed.