Pond Boss Forums INTRO Bob Lusk's blog Tilapia at my house

Let me set the stage. I live near the southern shore of Lake Texoma, north of Big Mineral Creek, east of Gordonville, Texas, on 12 acre of land. We have 8 small ponds on the 12 acres. The land falls 90 feet from top to bottom. Those 8 ponds cover slightly less than 5 acres. The two .10 acre ponds at the top are rectangular and designed to be hatchery ponds. Both are filled with well water. They are two years old. Last year, we raised some fathead minnows in one, and coppernose bluegill in the other. This year, I carried over both ponds with the same fish. Each pond became choked with filamentous algae, and my biologist, Chad Fikes, struggled to keep the algae in check. Since those ponds are designed to produce revenue, we have to pay attention to how much money we spend on herbicides. Chad worked hard to manage the plankton bloom with small amounts of fertilizer and the occasional microbe treatment.
I decided to stock 5 pounds of tilapia in the northernmost pond, the one with fathead minnows. Within two weeks, all algae was gone, and there were hundreds of babies seen around the shoreline. There hasn't been an algae issue since. The southern pond, the one with bluegill, developed a planktonic algae bloom. Chad chose to treat it with a small amount of chelated copper. Two days later, fish were dying. He turned on the well and began to exchange water. We lost 15 large adult bluegill and probably 150 young of the year. But, there are still several thousand 2-3" bluegill and several more thousand of the next smaller size class of bluegill. But, the pond still ebbs and flows with filamentous algae. With excessively hot temps, we have avoided any treatments other than microbes, and we limit that. We just exchange water. (Water from that pond flows into our main fishing pond)
The northern pond is steady, water looks great, all we do is make up water lost to evaporation. We have harvested 20 pounds of small tilapia for two anxious customers, but the rest of the fish are still there. When the water cools, we'll sample and prepare to harvest.
We also stocked two of the fishing ponds with 5 pounds of tilapia each. Those ponds are deep and not overcrowded with bass. Each has a Sweeney Feeder, too. Will check those out this fall.
My conclusion? Just like everyone else...those beasts have not only eaten some algae, they have controlled it. But, my stocking rate was the equivalent of 50 pounds per acre in the beginning.
I am becoming a bigger fan of tilapia. But, I am still tentative about declaring them anything other than a peripheral fish with a specific purpose or two. That is, until Cody comes up with a new line of tilapia lures.

Try a 1/16 ounce limetreuse jig on those tilapia. Use a light action spinning rod with 6-pound test.

JP's timing couldn't have been better. Today, Chad and I caught more than 1,000 tilapia out of the hatchery pond. The lure? A 100 foot seine, ten feet deep. We enclosed 8 of our concrete fish vats inside an insulated "building." We used 4'x8' sheets of plywood, framed on each side of a 2'x4' with batt insulation. It measures 16'x20' and we have an electric oil heater, with plans to add another. The ceiling is thick clear plastic, used in greenhouses. Pretty cool. Read all about it in the Jan/Feb issue of PB. It works well with Theo's story about his indoor system.

Chad collected another 3-4,000 tilapia today, brought them into our enclosed room. He sorted some of them, but more to do.

I have twelve rectangular concrete vats. We decided to surround 8 of them with insulated walls and greenhouse plastic over the top. The walls are 4'x 8' plywood on 2'x 4' frame, with batt insulation. We have about 6,000 tilapia from 2"-10" sorted and spread out in those 6 tanks. Each tank holds about 500 gallons. We have two garage heaters and a radiant heater. They hold the temperature just above 60 degrees. So, on the cold nights we run the well, which is 68 degrees. The fish have settled in and are doing well, feeding like little pigs.
In the meantime, we have had cold weather, and three weeks ago, the remaining tilapia died. We had them in three different ponds. Pond one is heavy with feed trained bass and deep water. I didn't see a single dead tilapia, although I had seen hundreds of babies earlier in the year. Pond two is the "swimming" pond. I saw several big tilapia, dead on the bottom in water about three feet deep. The third pond is the .10 acre production pond, where the inside fish came from. We seined it six times and even drew it down for the last two pulls. Still, several hundred escaped the nets and were gobbled up with a great blue heron as they became sluggish. When an artic front finished them off, the remainder drifted to shore, where three buzzards did what they do.
So, now we see if several hundred pounds of tilapia can be kept alive economically for the winter. Either way, it will be another fun thing.

Tilapia vats are flushed every three days with 68 degree well water. We made it quite well through a hard cold snap, temperatures have moderated over the last two weeks. Shad are feeding heavily and seem to be thriving. We waited a little late to bring them in. Ended up losing about 400 after all was said and done. Mixed some extra vitamins and an antibiotic into some Game Fish Chow as we began feeding the creatures. Chad took a small bottle of Karo Syrup, added half an ounce of liquid baby vitamins, mixed well, added 2 ounces of terramycin, mixed well and then poured it over 25 pounds of feed in a wheelbarrow. Stirred with a garden hoe, and let dry. Then, he sprayed about six ounces of vegetable oil on the whole mixture and let it soak in. The fish love it. The vitamins are to supplement what they normally get in a pond, the antibiotic was to ward off bacterial infections due to handling, and the vegetable oil was for extra calories. They eat the stuff as soon as it lands.