Tilapia Breeding

Sorry to say.. these are big/old. When i first see them hatched, I can only see the black eye.

Regarding leaving the eggs to brood with the female. This is the natural way to do this and many people prefer it. However I liketo have a bit more control so I relieve her of that duty and do it artificially using the technique described in this paper with great success: http://bit.ly/ZESh8I

Also removing the eggs immediately kicks her back into the breeding cycle reducing the time till her next batch. 

I would like to mention a sad experience I had with a female with babies in her mouth. If you remove a female she will be in distress and release the babies into the net and with her thrashing about the babies may be flung all around killing them and making you sad. I now leave the babies until I can see them feeding and mostly making it on their own and then move them to a safe tank. My last batch I got 350 fry all healthy and the adults cant seem to catch them if you have some hiding places.

RE: Red fins dorsal and anal. Male breeding colors.

At low densities of fish, the males will fight for territory and yes they can kill each other. (see vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWT1EX30ppk)

Also big males have been known to bully small males unto death. Solution? 

1. More uniform fish size.

2. Increase density. Like people in an elevator at a certain number of fish/ft3, (number unknown, trial and error) social restrictions break down and fighting diminishes or stops all together.

3. I am sure the others on the list will have additional workable solutions. 

P.S. Regarding removing fry & eggs from females. From my experience it is a skill you learn. Once you got it, you loss percentages drop significantly. IMHOP.

I have seen tilapia cultured in densities as high as 1 lb/gallon. Very risky however, I would not recommend it. However it demonstrates how resilient tilapia are. This paper might help: https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/52/

Regarding fish growth, tilapia can have excellent food conversion ratios (FCR). I have seen as low as 1:1.1. In this case for every 1.1 pounds of feed provided you get one pound of fish. More common however is 1:1.5. In this case about 66% of your feed is being converted to fish. For rapid growth, feed about 3% of their estimated body mass per day. Translating to English, if your fish weigh 1,000 grams, feed 30 grams per day. Putting the two calculations together into an Excel  sheet can give you some interesting projections. Naturally this is based on having very clean water and an excellent filter system and your skill as a farmer.

I can't tell male and females? at least not looking at the genitals, or someone said the females have stripes, but this is not clear to us... the ones we separated in a fish tank, but a lot of then fight and some are loosing scales and there fins are getting bit. We keep trying taking in and out different ones to try??? I think all the ones we have are males... we have about 60 fish.

Greetings Elizabeth. What species of tilapia are you using?

Harlyn,

Thank you for sharing. I get discouraged on this site from people without experience misquoting the research as if it is their own experience.

Thank you

OMG, about a week ago we star it an aquarium with 5 tilapias from our main tank; it all look great bought a heater to make the water to a comfortable 80,s and saw the nesting and we thought all was all good, we went away for 5 days to come back to a sad 3 dead 1 almost dead and 1 in a okay condition, we thinks this is a big male. We are having such of difficult time sexing them that we provably put to many males or females and they kill them self, also the water was very high on everything and murky. We are so sad and disappoint it, need all the help we can get from you experts out there. We are trying to had them reproduce in the aquarium. Thanks

Elizabeth,

Do not get discouraged. Answer Randall's questions and use this as a learning step

Dukie,

This is not a simple question and answer. Sit back and chill. It might not happen at all this time.

Been there

Not fun to be disappointed.. But it is a step in the right direction.

I have hours of video with them doing everything, but no babies

GREAT memories forever

Hello, this is Elizabeths husband Fabio, I'll try to give more info, the tank is a 55 gl, the fish r nile, size approx. 5" to 6" 7", we started with 4 of what we thought were 1 m n 3 f, but they started bumping their sides, 2 of them were so badly thrashed that it looked like cotton coming out from the sides, they died. so took other 2 n placed them back in main tank, researched the sexing more, thought we got the right ones, 1 was 7" other 4 about 4 to 5", the big one started clearing a nest, but soon after began beating up on others n 2nd biggest also on smaller one, so I lost 4 more, water was high in everything, I cleaned tank got more filters more air n fresh clean water that will sit for 3 or 4 days b4 adding fish, but how can I b sure of male n female, to succeed...? help. plz 

Here is a short video of Blue Tilapia breeding at Sahib's Hybrid Aquaponics Research Hobby Farm.

http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/video/blue-tilapia-breeding...

Hi, thanks so much for the info. I wasn't able  to load the link for the video.

I cannot view Sahib's video. I am I doing something wrong?

Randall,

Your advice has been right on the money with my own experiences.

Maybe this link to Sahib's video will work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSUh-Y6oZ94

Great

Thank you

Thank you David.

No idea why the link back to the AquaponicsSource was not working. Thank you for providing the direct Youtube link.

God bless

Stripped four more females yesterday. 30 gallon and 37 are full of fry. These Blues are like the energizer bunny. One of the females released in the tank before I could net her. My 5 inch fish had a feast. You wanna see on angry mamma. I have never seen a female get this aggressive with other fish. The big male got her to calm down and she is fine and eating normally today.

If you can see your baby tilapia in a pond, chances are they have learned how to hide successfully.

4 females to 1 male is good. Breeding is complicated, but a natural occurrence. My belief is that if you let it happen naturally, you will have enough fish to eat for your family and friends. If you want to sell tilapia for profit, you will need a large operation.

At the U of A, their tilapia tanks look like 55 gallon drums. I have seen the drums full of fish and still have frys. They are not doing research. They are training aquaponic facility managers.

I have 2 100 gal fish tanks, 2 150 gal fish tanks, and a 300 gal fish tank each has its own grow-bed. For breeding, I have a 125 gal tank, 3 50 gal tanks, 1 40 gal, and a 10 gal. I had fun and learned a great deal about fish and breeding, but I have shut down my breeding efforts, because I have enough fish hatching in the aquaponic setting. So, for a learning experience... I say have fun. Come up here and I will give you all of my aquariums.  

These are my opinions. I hope others on here will express their opinions

Randall,

I enjoyed reading about your experiences.

Thank you for sharing

Dave soon to be in VanHorn 

Thanks for the heads up

http://experiencingtheemirates.blogspot.com/2009/11/second-fish-sub...

I suggest Kellen and Sarah Weissenbach. good clean fish and great people to help you learn

Thanks for the recommendation Dave. :)

Who do you want to do the certification?