Comment

Comment by JD Sawyer on October 31, 2010 at 9:41am

There lies one of the challenges I expected, in that I've put a few planter pots at the bottom of the tank already to create some habitats to see if some of the big ones would venture in and take residence hopefully minimizing some of the general tank space aggression issue. The flip side is that I'm creating great habitats for them to breed as well, but I'm not all that opposed to it happening because it would be nice to get a new population going in a side system.

Right now for a new system I've only lost 3 fish out of 88 (3.4% mortality) so based upon some average mortality rates I've seen hovering around 10%, I'm feeling like this is just some normal "hardening off" a little of the population combined with a little territorialism that may taper off in due time.

Your contributions and insights have been tremendous as always. Thanks

Comment by TCLynx on October 31, 2010 at 9:30am

I'm not sure exactly but I do know it is possible for rather small tilapia to start showing breeding behavior. I think I've had 4 inch tialpia breed. (Doesn't give much time between the fish being big enough to sex to when they may start breeding.)

Most of the time I kept my tilapia in a cage off the bottom of the tank to keep them from breeding and at first I had dropped a piece of pipe into the cage and I left it figuring they would hide in it. Unfortunately, they did breed in it, kinda shocked me as the fish were still not that big. I did my best to catch the fry and put them in an aquarium and I removed the piece of pipe from the cage.

Comment by JD Sawyer on October 31, 2010 at 8:51am

When do Tilapia reach sexual maturity on average?

Comment by JD Sawyer on October 31, 2010 at 8:48am

I'll observe more closely to see if this is indeed what is happening. Since they just recently transitioned into this system less than two weeks ago I would be surprised if this were happening already but I've not had a breeding situation before yet so I really don't know...

Comment by TCLynx on October 31, 2010 at 8:25am

I also had trouble with the male really beating up on the females in a tank that was 50 gallons and between 73 and 78 F.

When I put them basically unsupervised in a large tank (probably 300 gallons) out in our warm summer weather (water probably 80-86 F) I didn't loose any fish though I don't know for certain that no one was getting beat up. I do know that with 12 adult fish in that tank, I had lots of breeding going on and never found a floater or jumper. It was a 16 foot long tank though.

Comment by TCLynx on October 31, 2010 at 8:21am

Yep, David is right there, a Female with a mouth full of fry ready for release can become very aggressive (I think I've had one fish killed by being in a small tank with another fish about to release fry.). On my Blues, I would notice a black band between the eyes become very dark on the Female getting ready to release fry.

Comment by David Hart on October 31, 2010 at 6:09am

JD, is the 'bully' eating when you feed thwm ?
The bully, might be a 'she' carrying eggs/fry in her mouth. I've seen smaller females become bullys and chase away fish twice her size.
Just a thought...lol

Comment by JD Sawyer on October 30, 2010 at 10:44pm

the tank water is 78

Comment by TCLynx on October 30, 2010 at 10:19pm

Now if he is just chasing others out of his territory but not actually beating anyone up, I might just leave things but if he is causing injury or going to chase another fish right out of the tank then time to sequester him.

What is the temperature of the tank water?

Comment by JD Sawyer on October 30, 2010 at 10:05pm

Thanks for the quick response TC. I added dissolved salt at 1 ppt this morning. I would have pushed it to 3ppt but didn't have enough salt. I'll see if I can create some dividers. The largest one is clearly the biggest bully and is taking up 1/4 of the bottom area of the tank.

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