Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How do you all manage the threat of over population in the closed systems?

I live in Texas and here the only tilapia that I can have with out a permit is mozambique. I am just starting out so I dont want to invest $$$$$ into something that may or may not take off for us and I wonder how to deal with over population. From what I have read tilapia breed a little to well with out a predator to control them.

My starter tank is a 330 gallon IBC tank that will be set up using the drain and flow system I believe. I prefer the CHIFT PIST because I am familiar with the set up but my husband doesnt want to add a sump because of the extra cost (I have a lot of ideas if you know what I mean).

you can manage population easily
you will require batter a slice of lemon and a salad
then sit down and enjoy

you can stop the fish from breeding by simply by blocking the females from picking the eggs up off the bottom of the tank by putting some "egg crate" (like the flourescentlight covers that have the little square openings) or net type material suspended above the bottom of the tank

throw some yabbies in.... that will sort them out

LOL Some very interesting answers. Thanks. Blocking the bottom is a really good idea.

once the first batch of fry get big enough, they will eat a lot of the newly hatched fry and keep the population down that way.

To keep that from happening, i scoop out any newly released fry when they first school up at the top of the fish tank. I keep these fry from each week, in 7, 2 gal buckets with air stones, till they get to one inch or so and too big to be eaten, and then put them in a 55gal tank. Any culls or extra 1" or larger fry are fed to the 6" to 12" catfish.

any 4" or larger jumpers, or other dead fish, or larger culls, I feed to the larger 1.5'-3.5' 3-8lb catfish that are in the main tank with the tilapia breeders.............

Yabbies are an austrailian crawfish. Hard to get in Texas, but crawfish will have the same effect. That reminds me, I need to pick some up...

Hmmmm, I need to pick some of those up too...

it may just be my IBC tank setup but I ended up having to create a separate breeding tank to mate tilapia (needed anyway to keep them alive throughout the winter) - my 3 ibc totes have never yielded babies (i have netted a few brooding eggs however i'm guessing by the time they hatch they get sucked through the pipes or no idea as there is nothing in there to eat them and i know from the inside tanks the big guys have no interest in the frys - either way i'd say thats a lucky problem to have - heck even in my aquariums i have to watch them from getting sucked into the filters etc - my biggest batch of 100+ frys was only when i pulled them hatched directly from their mothers mouth... leaving it to happen naturally i manage to net 10-20 of them painfully at that >_<