Tilapia Breeding

I know a guy selling breeding colonies that he claims produces the largest fish quickly.. My experience with these fish is... Not true..

Buyer beware.

I have fish from him and I have fish from Kellen.. I do not mix them.. because I want to know, what do I want to have for the next 20 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z09Iad2kDQk&feature=plcp

Way cool

I setup my camera to do this, but I could never catch this action..

thank you for sharing

Thanks Dave.  I cannot take credit.  They were my fish but a good friend did the video at his place.

Does anyone one know of a safe chlorine remover? Most bottles say “not to be use on fish that are to be consumed”.

Chlorine can be outgassed by putting the water in a barrel in the sun or bubbling air through it.

Chloramine is another story.

is there a test out there for Chloramine?

Call your water utility or authority.  They have to be able to tell you what they use in the water.  Ask for the water report.

Of course if you go adding ammonia to chlorinated water, you will probably create some chloramines yourself so you should always make sure to outgass chlorine in a new system (let it pump around and bubble for several days) before you add ammonia for fishless cycling or before you add fish.

There are chlorine tests but I don't know if they will tell you the difference between chlorine and chloramine.

I have chlorine test for pool, but I am sure it can't measure that low of ppm.

I have a well so home is ok, But I am looking for warehouse to start commercial

growing. 

I use dpd 001 and dpd 002 to test for free chlorine levels then I add dpd 003 for total chlorine. I have no free chlorine in my water it is all Chloramine. I'm not sure if out gasing will work. I read Sodium thiosufate works but is it safe to use on fish that will be on my plate? If it is safe where do you find it?

Believe it or not Sodium Thiosulfate is just a chemical that the old professionals use to develop film; you see it in the old
movies where they drop the photo in the water to watch it develop under the red lights. I only know this because I had a friend a long time back and I was asking what to use to get the chemicals out of my water for the fish and she gave me a pint jar of the stuff for free. I used it then on tropical fish and plants in a system I was setting up for raising tropical fish and everything thrived, but I have never used it under the guise of going to eat the plants and fish. It seemed to be safe for use but some research would need to be done before I would ever use it in an aquaponics system.

Also a use point she told me that it only takes a very small amount to clean up allot of water so dont waste it by using too much, using more than you need dosent make the water any more pure.

I just picked up 5 females and 1 male to put them in a aquarium for breeding. When I was sexing them and then putting them in the aquarium (they are normally in a pond), one of the females let some eggs fall. 

But they then dissappeared. Before that, she just left them there. SO i'm not sure if they were eaten or not. But if this happen again and she doesn't pick them up, should I collect them and put them in a small aquarium? Or leave them there? 

How can I test my system for fluoride in the water? If I have high levels what can be added that will remove it? Like ascorbic acid remove chlorine.

Randall, they should be fine. they only need her to protect them from other fish. Now you will need to feed the little guys... i have given them the slug from the bottom of a grow bed, smashed feed, algae, etc. but all three would be a more complete diet.

dont fret the build up.. they will get to it. you can turn off the filter and just aerate the heck out of it for now. or just keep a sponge or screen on the filter intake and clean it often, they will do fine. thats the beauty of tilapia... tough as nails.

Randall, you are going to be just fine. I just had me a litter of tilapia and actually you want them to be out of the mothers mouth and her put away. Now all you have to do is grind up some flake fish food as small as you can get and then put a little into the tank, they will see it and eat it all up. You dont have to get them any special food unless you want to. I use the TetraMin tropical flakes for the little babies. As they get bigger you wont have to grind the flakes up as much. Rob is correct about the tilapia being tough as nails. Heck I had one mother that I took out of the tank and her babies that still have the egg sac on them was out of the bag and I had no choice but to put them in a small 10 gal tank and they did just fine. Some breeders do what is called stripping of the eggs from the females and put them in a bubbler so the eggs get a constant movement as to not build up fungus and they hatch out in the thousands without the mother at all. The little bubbler setup does what she does with the babies in her mouth.

I just read all 51 pages on this comment wall - yep the eyes are a little red right now. Thanks to everyone who shared I have learned a lot  

I did not see anything talking about sensitivity to light. I have 19 tilapia in a 55 Gal drum it's black, and there isn't much light getting in there - will this have a negative or positivie affect on the fish? They seem happy but then again I'm new to the whole fish thing so might be misreading the signs

they seem less stressed without light. I currently have 3 - 55 gallon tanks in my basement, and I leave the lights off most of the time. they just seem happier and they eat more/better.

Most fish only require enough light so they can tell night from day.

It might be possible that a little more light and longer days along with warmer water might encourage breeding.

But for growing out fish to eat, they don't need sun tans, keeping things dim or dark is just fine.

Thanks for the feed back.

It looks like cranking the temp up over 80F is going to be the key for mine they are 10x more active now then they were when it was hovering around 70F, and I can't believe how much more they have started to eat.

I am Excited! my first batch of eggs! 

Well done Randall :-)

God bless

Good evening.  I am new to the group and have been growing Tilapia in recirculating systems for a few years as a food product for local consumers.  My difficulty is identifying femals to sequester for reproduction purposes.  I have a mixture of reds and blues, not interested in streamlining purity for the food market.  Can you point me to a discussion earlier or if someone has a good method and would share I would be appreciative.

hi -my name is frank zarauskas,i live in decatur,texas   i would like to join your group. i am raising about 8000 talapia -- and 800 breaders .this year will be a good year(i hope) i am raising mosembique and i will need your help??? I have7-300 gal--6-  600 gal and3-900 gal tanks please get back to me  (940-433-5077) thanks frank z 

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My tilapia never did breed in an aquarium for me.  When I threw about 12 of them into a duckweed tank (of about 300 gallons) and the water was up in the mid 80's we had lots of breeding going on.

My tilapia spawned outside the last week of December so I got all I need for this year. I still had 34 big ones from last year in my 3000 gal pool but those two days of very cold weather last week caused 8 to die, I'm pretty sure the temp went into the 40's. Those who are having trouble getting them to spawn I think perhaps your trying to hard, just get a big tub or kiddy pool and toss a few in and wait till you see fry swimming around the edges. For aquarium spawning I use a 65 gal with two males and 5 females. I put two clay 6 inch saucers at opposite ends of the tank, this arrangement works for me. My own feeling is 'survival of the fittest'. I've left my tilapia outside for the past 3 winters and yes I loose some but most survive.

I want to try breeding tilapia in a 150 gallon aquarium. How should I set the aquarium up? What kind of filtration to prevent loss of eggs or fry? Gravel or no gravel and what kind?

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks

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.

I have them breeding in a 55gal aquarium with no problems. Just need to make sure you have more females than males in the tank with nice places to hide. I have sections of 6 inch blue pvc tube cut to about 8 inches long for hiding places.

I also have a 29 gal aquarium that I use to take the female to when she is loaded with fry in her mouth. There they get released into that tank and then I just put her back into the 55 gal tank to start all over again.

I use bare bottom tanks with a few flower pots laying on their sides. I leave the females alone for as long as I can, until she is near ready to release them. Some times this isn't possible so I move her to an isolation tub, but she usually spits her eggs and or fry so I have to use an tumbler. Give her a couple days rest and return her to the breeding tank.

All I have is the main 300g FT and the 190g. Do need to remove the female once she has released the fry?

@Bryan Acred- Floating a mop (the type made of yarn) in the tank will give provide protection.

We don't know what else to do to bring the water temperature higher. Because we had the system for over a year now and we don't have any babies ??? Help.

Thanks so much. Also Im looking for prawns around my area, Melbourne Fl.

One thing that gets over looked is nitrate which is the end product of the nitrogen cycle. You have a tank and filter running which converts the ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate, but you don't do water changes or have plants to get rid of the nitrate. Nitrate builds up and makes the fish very unhappy so they are not in the mood to raise a family. If you have a male and female and the water quality is reasonably good and water temp 75 and up they will spawn.

@Larry Once they spawn, should I remove the male and female? 

Provided the female has already release the fry from her mouth of course.

I leave them alone as long as there are places for her to hide, if she gets to battered them move her.

My concern is whether the male or female would start eating the fry once they are out of her mouth. I would love to be able to just leave the female in the tank with the fry.

Here is some great info for you. Read below or just goto the site link for the full page.

http://www.biology-resources.com/fish-tilapia-01.html

If a female enters the territory, she may be attacked in the same way but when she fails to respond, the male changes his behaviour pattern to a slow, swimming movement, with body tilted downwards, leading her towards the pit he has dug There may follow a courtship pattern, which varies very much with the species, but often consists of quivering movements or swimming round and round in the nest-pit, while the male butts at the protruding genital tube of the female.

Such an elaborate behaviour pattern ensures that sperms are shed at the moment that eggs are laid, thus increasing the chances of fertilization. In the substrate spawners, the eggs are laid singly and they at once stick to the pebbles or sand in the nest pit. With each batch of ten or more eggs, the male swims over them, shedding sperms, and so fertilizes them. From 50 to 700 eggs may be laid according to the age and size of the female. In many species, both parents remain at the nest.

During this time, one of them will guard the nest by driving off intruders, expel debris which falls into the pit and remove infertile eggs which might become a source of fungal infection. The parent also aerates the eggs by creating a current of water with its fins.

After a few days, the young hatch and may be taken up in the parent's mouth to be transferred to a different pit. Here the young fish stick to the substrate by a pair of mucous glands on the head while they use up the yolk remaining from the egg. If they try to leave the nest singly, the parent snaps them up and spits them back into the pit, but eventually they all leave the nest together, swimming as a school and following the parent for a week or more before they become independent.

In the mouth brooders, the courtship pattern is followed by spawning in which the female lays perhaps hundreds of eggs in the nest and these are immediately taken up into the mouth. The male sheds sperms over the eggs or over the place where they were laid and the female takes this up too, so that fertilization will occur in the mouth. The female is then chased away by the male who may at once start courting other mature females. For about ten to twelve days the female carries a mouthful of eggs or young fish. The breathing movements are restricted and feeding is not attempted. If the young fish swim out of the mouth they are snapped up again but after about ten days the mother ejects them in swarms. These swarms form a school and follow the mother. In some species the youngsters will return to the mouth if danger threatens; the mother "calls" them by swimming slowly backwards.

      The accounts given above are based on observations in aquaria and are very generalized; in fact, there is considerable variation in behaviour between the species of cichlids, e.g. in some mouth brooders it is the male which carries the eggs and young, and certain species do not dig nests until after courtship and pair formation, when it may be the female who does most of the work.

What is the best filtration set up for a 150 gallon breeding aquarium?

I have 40 new blue tilapia fry fish. One of my fish had eggs in it mouth and I woke up and the angel fish were going nuts. Luckily not to many got eating up. I have 2 other fish full of eggs. This is just my first batch. I hope at least 20 or so survive. I need more fish to fill up my larger tanks. I'm not sure on how to breed certain fish yet, to get my own color...