Feed

[Nate Irish]

Hello like minded friends I am setting up a system that I hope to raise Tilapia, its been my understanding that these fish are vegetarians and you can grow their food source. My question is what kind of foods can you grow for them and how? thank you for all the information that you all provide it is so helpful and you are helping a community of people wanting to become self sustained

[Bob Vento]

Jon,

Do you know if fingerlings will eat and thrive on rabbit food if it is broken down into smaller pieces?

Bob

Jon Parr said:

Yeah, I know I'm a couple of months late to the party here, but just thought I'd add that I feed my tilapia rabbit pellets; very cheap, sustainable, locally available everywhere at every feed store, and seems to be a whole food for tilapia. Once they get used to it, they prefer it over aquamax 4000. I recently graduated a batch of fry and fed them a mix of rabbit feed and AM4000. At first, they went for the AM4000, maybe because of the protein, or maybe because it floats and fry prefer to hang out up top. Within a few days, 1" fry actually began to go for the sinking rabbit feed first. Now at 4" long, they are my fastest growing batch I've ever raised, and the ratio is 90/10 rabbit pellets to AM4000. Be warned, rabbit feed produces a lot of mulm, and a good pump is needed to keep it cleaned. Worms in the growbed go ape over the mulm and any uneaten food, so all good. It's very rich in nitrogen, so make sure your biofilter can handle it, and you have plenty of heavy drinking plants to pull nitrates.

[Jon Parr]

Sure, Bob. Most rabbit food comes in 12-16% protein, and that is ok for tilapia of all ages, but smaller fish prefer higher protein counts. I feed both rabbit food, high protein Aquamax, and try to throw a variety of other foods to cover anything missing. Even large pellets soften and disintegrate almost immediately, so no need to break them up.