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Tilapia not cooperating

OK so I bought about 2020 Tilapia about 4 days ago, and I thought they were all males, but a few died and they had eggs in them, I have looked at every one of them and to me they all look the same, anyways I took 4it and put them in a aquarium going that I had male and female, but now one rules the aquarium while the other three are herded in a corner. And if they move the king and or queen quickly puts them back in the corner. These Tilapia are about 8 inches long....any ideas what's going on, o and tank is 29 gal mite be a little small but was hoping I could minutes them and be able to find which was whick

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Permalink Reply by Joel G on June 8, 2012 at 5:33am

Hi!

8" tilapia in a 29G tank is really crowding it.

The "king" is the alpha male, and I bet if your tank has sand substrate you would find it would build a nest. The rest of the tilapia are lesser males and females. The best way to find the females is to wait for them to lay eggs and mouthbreed them.

Also, make sure there are some hiding areas for the lesser tilapia to hide from until you can get a bigger tank.

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Grim on June 8, 2012 at 10:39am

It sounds like you got regular mixed sex tilapia.

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Permalink Reply by Joel G on June 8, 2012 at 9:39pm

Forgot to mention a number of things:

1) I have noticed that the alpha male only "acts up" when a/the female/s become mature. So there must still be at least 1 female in the group.

2) too few females (when they cant hide) often results in "battered wives", eventually dead ones if the situation is not corrected soon enough.