Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was showing my mom my Blue Tilapia tank (in aquarium, with filter, no AP system yet). They are each 2-3.5 in. and when old enough will hopefully be my breeding group. She noticed that 4 out of the five have a dark broken horizontal line down the middle. The 5th one's line is barely visible, it's mostly light colored. She said she had found a chart on the internet, from some fish farm in Honduras or elsewhere that showed Blue Tilapia colors based on mood. She said that dark broken line was a sign of stress. True or no? Anyone seen a chart like that? My mom has been breeding Blue Tilapia for about 7 months, so she's pretty new to this too, but quite a bit beyond me.

BTW, the fish seem fine right now, but I am cycling the tank so I'll get more test strips tomorrow and see where everything is.

I could not find any reference to it. I would not stress about the stress level of your fish, or you might stress them out. Keep an eye on the parameters, but I can tell you that my tilapia have handled massive ammounts of nitrites with no deaths, so don't over worry. If ammonia or nitrites are too high, just stop feeding till they come down.

Yeah, I'm not worried about it. But I would like to see that chart, lol. Would be interesting for sure.

The benefit of a members thread is that all of those trials and tribulations are recorded for the enrichment of others. The link is in my signature.

Hmm, I could make a member thread, I guess I just didn't see a purpose for making a one until I actually have an AP system, and a bit of fish in an aquarium is far from that.

I posted because I hoped that with the large group here, someone might have seen that chart. It may be bunk, but it would be fun to read and compare my learning experiences with tilapia with it. Like I said I'm not worried about my fish, I've been breeding other types of fish on and off for most my life. There are other signs I look for before I get worried.

But, if the culture of this board is to put all my questions into one thread, I can do that.

my guess is that the darker fish are females and the lighter colored male. the male will relentlessly bully the females causing stress. consider adding some pipes sections for hideout holes.

Ahh.... yes, the male is the lighter one. I picked four females and one male from my mom's tilapia pond in anticipation of them breeding later. Now I understand the stress. I thought he was too young to care about the females yet. Maybe not.

I'll add the pipe sections.

i've got 10 blue tilapia, colors range from dark blue to almost white.. but now the lighter colored fish are gettings some very redish colors around their fins/mouths.. i know that they had babies in the pool once, but the yellow perch got most of them, 3 babies made their way to the sumptank

I was not saying that you needed to start a thread, though it is a good idea. I thought you were asking how high my nitrites were. I did start mine before I had a system. It gave me a place to show my plans, refine, and show build progress. The thread helped me through some of the tougher times, as I had an easy place to refer back and read words on encouragement. It also helped me get my mind back onto the original plan.

Start it anyway and think of it as a journal where you can ask questions and later on find the answers when you need 'em.

I started mine about a year before I got my system up and running and am glad I did - I still go back every now and again and look at the progress made from scratch.

Oooh, lol. Got it. No, I was saying that the actual reason I posted this thread was because I hoped someone had seen that color chart for moods of tilapia, not because I was worried about my fish. But my mom said she thinks she knows where she found it and she'll send me the link. It ought to be interesting. Credible? Dunno, but I think it will be fun to watch and see if it's true.