Rule of tumb breeding

[Stuart Polkinghorne]

Lets post some rule of thumb breeding tips, so all can find some easy and fast methods people are and have used successfully.

Things to include that have worked for you or that you know work.

Temperatures.

Stock numbers.

Tank sizes.

Feeding regiments or changes.

Breeding houses or cover.

If using any base on the tank bottom.

Feel free to add any helpful hint, advice and links, for all wanting to increase their changes of successfully breeding Talapia.

[Bryan Acred]

I have a 190 gallon tank that I want to use as a breeder tank for now. Do you keep the Male and Female in the tank once she has released the fry?

thanks.

[Harlyn Mall]

Bryan Acred said:

I have a 190 gallon tank that I want to use as a breeder tank for now. Do you keep the Male and Female in the tank once she has released the fry?

thanks.

[Harlyn Mall]

Harlyn Mall said:

Bryan Acred said:

I have a 190 gallon tank that I want to use as a breeder tank for now. Do you keep the Male and Female in the tank once she has released the fry?

thanks.

Bryan, I have always kept my fry separated from the adults. Keeping them all together ends up with fry disappearing fast. I actually strip my females after 10 days of holding fry. I've tried to separate by sex, put "holding"females by themselves together. Nothing has worked for me as well as having a separate fry tank.

[Stuart Polkinghorne]

Thank you all for your comments and insight.

I have two breeding tanks and am about to build two bigger ones as the two I have now are only big enough to hold one male and one female.

Both tanks have already produced fry and I was wondering just how long I can leave the fry in the tanks with the the adults?

Or should I build a holding cage for them within the tank?

[Mathew Slattery]

I have a 140 gallon fiberglass tank with a window and 3 weeks ago I put 1 male and 5 females with 1 large taracota pot and 5 or more sections of 4" PVC and within 2 and a bit weeks 2 females were baring eggs. The temperature is around 78F with a pH around 8. I feed about once a day depending on how the tanks levels are doing.

I removed both females as soon as I noticed eggs and have put them in their own 10 gallon tanks. The tanks have pea gravel on the bottom which has seemed to be fine for the other babies I have raised. I plan to take the mothers out as soon as the babys have hatched.

[Jeff S]

First off let me say I've done this as a hobby for about 6 months. Started with a few feeder (sacrificial goldfish ) and 5 Tilapia- 4 female , 1 male in a 300 gal. tank with gravity drain grow bed. Over time I've noticed a female not eating and keeping her mouth closed so I assumed she had eggs but never saw any fry. Only thing I ever watched was ammonia level and have never done a water change but have lowered the water level.  I noticed all the females acting like they were carrying eggs so I decided to set up a birthing tank in a clear plastic tub, about 20-30 gallons with water from main tank. Took out 1 female and put her in the tank and after about 5 days my wife saw hundreds of fry in the small tank. I felt like a proud poppa and it got my wife's interest now too. One thing that I think attributed to all the females getting pregnant is possibly a rise in temp to 80+.

I do have the PVC pipe pieces and a flower pot in the big tank. Other than that nothing special. Build it and they will breed. Just follow info from the AGC members and you will do fine. I took the mother out after a few days and the fry are doing well. Just not sure how much to feed them so as not to contaminate the water. I did figure out it's easier to scoop out the fry in several sessions and then remove the mother because the fry will go back into mom's mouth when you try to catch her. Now I have a nursery and a birthing tank.

[Trevor Johnson]

im designing a small system in my basement and would like to have a fish tank in my living room to breed. can i go with a smaller tank and just 2 females, 1 male? if so, how small of a tank could i get to have successful breeding?  keeping in mind my system  can have about 20 fish in it at once (4 stages) i dont need to have a lot of fry. just enough to keep the system going?

if this is not viable is there another fish i could choose to multiply myself on a small scale?

thanks

[Jeff S]

If you're just trying to keep your plants growing don't think about breeding. I assume you're talking about Tilapia and if so they reproduce by the hundreds. One good thing about them is they will eat there fry if you leave them in the same tank. If you are just trying to sustain your system use something simple like goldfish. Buy em cheap at the pet store and learn about aquaponics for a while. It's a lot of fun. I have 2 litters of Tilapia fry and have been trying to figure out what I'm going to do with them. I have 2 IBC tanks but I'm not even sure if they are big enough to grow out this many fish. I do know I'm going to need more grow beds to accommodate the fish.

Trevor Johnson said:

im designing a small system in my basement and would like to have a fish tank in my living room to breed. can i go with a smaller tank and just 2 females, 1 male? if so, how small of a tank could i get to have successful breeding?  keeping in mind my system  can have about 20 fish in it at once (4 stages) i dont need to have a lot of fry. just enough to keep the system going?

if this is not viable is there another fish i could choose to multiply myself on a small scale?

thanks

[Trevor Johnson]

i am looking for long term sustainability so breeding does interest me. I herd tilapia are cannibalistic but i could keep them at a higher stocking density to keep them from trying to reproduce with both males and females in the tank. 

i will have 4 35 gallon barrels for the fish. 4 tanks of 4-6 fish for easy harvest. so i will need a small number of fry to add to the fish tank every 3 months.

i can either compost of freeze the extra eggs (to feed back to the fish) to eliminate the large numbers. 

so back to my original question. can i breed tilapia in a smaller decorative fish tank that lives in a living room?

[Harlyn Mall]

Trevor, how small is the decorative tank? I have bred in a 55 gallon with about 20 smaller tilapia (up to about 4 inches). It was the bigger ones that started breeding on their own. It was my fingerling tank on a small AP system. You can go ahead and not worry too much about numbers if you separate a few more fry than you need to keep. keep in mind that fingerlings will eat smaller fingerlings and they do not grow at the same rate. Hence, separating out more than you will actually want to keep. The rest can be left in the community tank as food. most of the fry will be eaten in a very short time. I have been breeding and raising Blue Tilapia for over a year if you have any questions feel free to ask. You can also see a lot of pics of my systems at www.facebook.com/OurAquaponics. Hope this helps.

Trevor Johnson said:

i am looking for long term sustainability so breeding does interest me. I herd tilapia are cannibalistic but i could keep them at a higher stocking density to keep them from trying to reproduce with both males and females in the tank. 

i will have 4 35 gallon barrels for the fish. 4 tanks of 4-6 fish for easy harvest. so i will need a small number of fry to add to the fish tank every 3 months.

i can either compost of freeze the extra eggs (to feed back to the fish) to eliminate the large numbers. 

so back to my original question. can i breed tilapia in a smaller decorative fish tank that lives in a living room?

[Stuart Polkinghorne]

Just an up date on where I am with my breeding system.

We have 8- 115gal tanks all running off one sump and 2- 20 gal fingerling holding tank running on the same sump.

5 YY males, 2 Nile and 1 Red. I have found some males like more females with them and some only like to have 2.

water is at 26-28. not heaters.

I run 3 sun blaze2ft 6500k blue for 9hours on the roof of the breeding room.( any time change ideas?)

This week we have had three females release babies and four more still carrying.

now have a incubator that worked very well and will build three more later this week.

Next month we are getting 5 more YY's, but this time I will use IBC's and incubators. based on a breeding system in the Philippines. Where they run 5 males with 25 females in a 2m x 3m tank, draining the tanks every 18 day remove all eggs into incubators.  I'll do 2 males 8-10 females.