What do you feed fingerling Tilapia?

[Doug Johnson]

What is the best thing to feed fingerling Tilapia that is readily available? When do you switch them off onto something else? (I have seen aqua max 4000 mentioned several times)

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

[TCLynx]

If the tilapia are still really small, they want a high protein feed.  There are flakes you can get from any pet store that are 46% protein and that should tied you over while you order some other feed.  When getting high protein feed I usually get it in like 5 lb packages from Aquatic Eco Systems and then I later transition the fish up to the Aquamax 4000 as they are big enough to deal with the larger pellets and lower protein %.

I don't grow tilapia anymore though.

How many fish are you talking about?

By the way, I don't like the higher protein Aquamax feeds and If I were growing huge amounts of fish at a time I would probably try a different brand for the fry/fingerling food.  The Aquamax 4000 seems to work fine for me for growing out fish and maintaining water quality as well as good plant growth.

[Doug Johnson]

About 60 or 70 to start with.

Thanks for your input!

TCLynx said:

If the tilapia are still really small, they want a high protein feed.  There are flakes you can get from any pet store that are 46% protein and that should tied you over while you order some other feed.  When getting high protein feed I usually get it in like 5 lb packages from Aquatic Eco Systems and then I later transition the fish up to the Aquamax 4000 as they are big enough to deal with the larger pellets and lower protein %.

I don't grow tilapia anymore though.

How many fish are you talking about?

By the way, I don't like the higher protein Aquamax feeds and If I were growing huge amounts of fish at a time I would probably try a different brand for the fry/fingerling food.  The Aquamax 4000 seems to work fine for me for growing out fish and maintaining water quality as well as good plant growth.

[TCLynx]

? Starting with 60-70 fish?

I hope you are running a fairly large system then.  I recommend at least a cubic foot of media bed per fish for a first season system.  I don't care if the fingerlings are small to start with, they eat high protein feed and grow fast and the bio-filtration on a new system isn't prepared to cope with MAX stocking right off the bat.  If you want to make sure there are nutrients for your plants to begin with, do some fishless cycling before you stock the fish and that will get your nitrate levels up and once you stock the fish things can settle in with far less stress than if you over stock a system from the start.

60-70 fish I would say are appropriate to a system with close to 600 gallons of media filled grow bed.  I won't give any numbers for raft systems since I don't run them and can't say with any real authority.

[Doug Johnson]

The first phase of my system is half of that so I guess I should scale the fish back to about 30 to 35.

Thanks again.

TCLynx said:

? Starting with 60-70 fish?

I hope you are running a fairly large system then.  I recommend at least a cubic foot of media bed per fish for a first season system.  I don't care if the fingerlings are small to start with, they eat high protein feed and grow fast and the bio-filtration on a new system isn't prepared to cope with MAX stocking right off the bat.  If you want to make sure there are nutrients for your plants to begin with, do some fishless cycling before you stock the fish and that will get your nitrate levels up and once you stock the fish things can settle in with far less stress than if you over stock a system from the start.

60-70 fish I would say are appropriate to a system with close to 600 gallons of media filled grow bed.  I won't give any numbers for raft systems since I don't run them and can't say with any real authority.

[TCLynx]

Always better to start small.  And I personally like to fishless cycle first (less stress for you and the fish and nutrients available for the plants early on too) and then stock appropriately to the filtration.

[Carey Ma]

I just posted part 3 of making your own feed.

Cheers

[Doug Johnson]

Is the food from Aquatic Eco the Tropical Flake?

TCLynx said:

If the tilapia are still really small, they want a high protein feed.  There are flakes you can get from any pet store that are 46% protein and that should tied you over while you order some other feed.  When getting high protein feed I usually get it in like 5 lb packages from Aquatic Eco Systems and then I later transition the fish up to the Aquamax 4000 as they are big enough to deal with the larger pellets and lower protein %.

I don't grow tilapia anymore though.

How many fish are you talking about?

By the way, I don't like the higher protein Aquamax feeds and If I were growing huge amounts of fish at a time I would probably try a different brand for the fry/fingerling food.  The Aquamax 4000 seems to work fine for me for growing out fish and maintaining water quality as well as good plant growth.

[TCLynx]

Which feed are you asking about Doug?

The flake feed from where ever was probably the Tetra 45% protein flakes.

The stuff from aquatic eco that I have used was a high protein pellet feed but when they sell it in the smaller bags, there is no label to tell who the actual manufacturer is.  I've never actually used the tropical flake feed from aquatic eco myself.

[Chi Ma]

I use this stuff: http://angelsplus.com/PelletStarter.htm