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Comment by Dave & Yvonne Story on September 12, 2011 at 9:13am

I have been interested with tilapia for more than a year. Had my first 50 delivered last May. I take care of them first thing in the morning and before I go to bed with two feeding in between. As everyone knows, they are growing fast and hearty. I have ordered a greenhouse for them over winter. I am experimenting with grow beds too.

Comment by SW on September 11, 2011 at 12:54pm

I noticed that a mother tilapia when fed will chew up the food, take a bunch of fry into her mouth, feed them and then spit them back out.  I had suspected that I was seeing her do that but yesterday my suspicion was confirmed.  

 

I found it very interesting behavior!  I'll try to get a video of her feeding them and I'll post it.

Comment by Larry Reinhardt on September 1, 2011 at 9:20am

On my Koi farm I fed the fry hard boiled egg yoke emulsified using a turkey baster for the first week and then switched them Purina Tropical Fish Fry Starter. This worked for koi and goldfish and tilapia cause that's the only food I fed them. Also I would take about 300,000 koi eggs up to South Carolina and put them in 2 acre clay ponds to hatch and growout out to 5" to 6" and then cull and truck them back to Florida. Those ponds were drained and dried then seeded with cotton seed meal then refilled with water prior to my taking the eggs up to hatch. Those ponds were nice and green and loaded with rotifiers and zooplanktons. I can't remember which ones grew the best, but as I recall there wasn't much difference in size. 

Comment by SW on August 27, 2011 at 4:20pm

Welcome to the group everyone that has joined over the last few days!  We just had another fry hatch so we have plenty if anyone needs some.

Comment by Ellen Roelofs on August 24, 2011 at 8:18pm

I just got a group of 10 fry today, so it'll be a while till any breeding happens here, but thought I'd start getting familiar!  The fish are in a 6' 100g tank with marbled crayfish, BN plecos and guppies.

Comment by SW on August 18, 2011 at 9:04am

Wow, good for you Conrad! I have a blast drinking my morning coffee & watching them interact.

 

Did you read that link I posted about the study done comparing raising fry with rotifiers and without?  There is a significant difference in growth rates.

 

One thing about tilapia fry, growth rates can be very mixed.  I have some fingerlings now that are 1 1/2" long and others from the same batch are barely 1/2".  I guess some fish of them are more aggressive feeders and runts are runts. :-)

Tilapia are also able to collect nutrients in green water through their gills.  This helps with growth rates and I think this ability helps keep the mothers from starving while brooding. The gills of tilapia secrete a mucous that traps plankton which is then swallowed by the fish.

 

Comment by Conrad Chin-Yee on August 18, 2011 at 5:50am

Today I saw, in addition to the small baby frys (1/2"), other tiny baby frys (1/8"). So there must be other tilapia breeding as well. I was also able to see chasing behavior with the fish...so they must be breeding! My fears about the syphon sucking out the baby fish into the filters has been allayed since there are sufficient left behind and I havent seen any fish in the filter drum. I think that this may because they tend to school nearer the top and not down near bottom where the syphon is sucking. Now I need to look for another tank so I can remove the breeders and leave the babies to grow in peace. I have not had to feed the babies special food. There seem to be enough soggy pellets or microrgnisms or detritus to feed them.

Comment by TCLynx on August 16, 2011 at 6:40pm

If you don't have any food to give the fry, I've heard of people taking a hard boiled egg yolk and just swipe your finger across it and float the residue off into the water to feed the fry until you can get a more complete feed.

Comment by SW on August 16, 2011 at 5:53pm

We start them on rotifiers and zooplankton starting the first day they have completely absorbed the egg yolk.  Sometimes that is right away, sometimes a day or so later. 

 

We have rotifiers in our grow beds and its pretty easy to net them out in quantities needed to feed the fry. Just take a fine mesh net and rapidly move it around (without disturbing the bottom debris) and you'll probably have some too.

 

Dried Zooplankton can be bought online or from your local aquarium store.  It doesn't take much of either to feed hundreds of fry.

Here's a link to a study on feeding rotifiers to fry

Here's a link on growing rotifiers

 

Congrats & let us know how it goes!

Sam

 

 

Comment by Lonnie Kirkman on August 16, 2011 at 5:36pm

how soon do I feed the fry just seen my small female let the first batch out today and I dont really know when to start feeding ?

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