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?

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?

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.