Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Grass Carp vs Tilapia

Skinny, I have a few thoughts and trust the experts will chime in.

Blue tilapia will die off when water temps hit around 45 degrees, so no danger of them overpopulating. Other tilapia species die off at higher temps.

Tilapia will eat about any vegetation, while grass carp will turn up their noses at a number of plants, including FA and some plants that have grown beyond a certain point of maturity (my reading posts here and info on the web suggests that as certain plants develop some characteristics make them less desirable than newly emergent plants).

Grass carp do their thing well for a fairly long period of time before becoming lazy and pretty much nonproductive. Tilapia will have to be replaced annually, but a heavy stocking for a couple of years may well help get certain vegetation under control, allowing lower stocking rates later.

I doubt that a pond already stocked with predators will suffer much predation of eggs/fry of your primary species as the tilapia adults will be busy eating vegetation and their fry will be busy getting eaten by YOY predator species.

I think a lot of it will depend on what plants are in the pond so before you can give a really useful answer, you'll need to know that info.

Let's see what the others have to say.