Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My first female just hatched out. How long before she is ready to release eggs again. The males are pretty agressive and I don't want to subject the females to any more torture than I have to. I have cut the males upper lips off but he is still going to chase and try to bite.

I think from what I read its 4 weeks after? maybe its 4 weeks they hold the eggs? I cant remember but its fast enough that they can overpopulate a tank and stunt growth.

jazz ,, If the male is larger than your gals ,, add hides ( pieces if pipe) that the gals can fit in and he cannot.
In perfect conditions I think it's 6/8 weeks betrween batches ,,
Don't forget to introduce new genetics on a regular basis ,, we don't want any banjo players:)

I'll get some links that are very helpfull ,, there on my other lap-top.

Thanks Chappo. I've looked quite a bit and found all kinds of info but nothing on the length of time in between spawns..

I just found something in a seminar manual from Morningstar Fishermen that says the female can lay eggs every three weeks... WOW!!!

OK ,, frequency of "batches" is effected by temperature , food and water quality.
If you have them in warm good quality water and feeding them good quality 30% PROTEIN food then the answer is " WAY TOOOOO often and way too fast " . A breeding set up of 2 tanks 4 females to each male ,can reproduce babies into the MILLIONS in 12 months.

Sorry I can't actually quantify other than TOOOO many.

Yes Chappo. That's what I'm hoping for. What bass bait huh? ..

No I know what you mean. I'll be careful.

Bass bait ,, and Bass food if you start Bass in you AP system.

I'd love to breed these for feeding to Aussie Trout or Aussie yellow belly.

Your problem will definately be too many babies ,, but they make quite good fertiliser

They can lay 2500 eggs per lb of body weight, twice a month, according to this

That would be pretty cool Nico but I'm not sure I believe those numbers. My 1/2 lb female just hatched about 3-4 dozen and I'm told by a professional tilapia breeder that it's possible to get around 200 out of a 5 lb female. He actually has some that size and gets around 1200-1500 at each hatching.

I would aim for 1x/month. That gives the females time to rest and recuperate. Females are always the limiting factor in building a population. That's why there's not much of a population dip after war in human populations.

Mouth brooders and nest brooders have a large variance in number of babies.
Even taking the 200 per brood and assuming 4 weeks between broods ,, you are still looking at 2,400 babies PER female per year , 12 females meaning near 30,000 per year ..... now don't forget your initial babies will be ready to reproduce in less than 4 months , so 200 times 200 times times AHHHHHHHHHHHHH ..... hope you've got BIG tanks.

Ha.. Funny Chappo. Actually that was a typo. It should have been 2000. Of course, now the problem is exponentially worse!!! . I promise I'm not trying to set hatching records without a plan. I may have a large potential market for fingerlings though, so I'm just thinking down the road a bit.

Well there sure seems to be amarket there. So many US citizens having so much trouble getting Tilapia. Try to keep each batch sperate and only keepthe best growers for breeding,,,keep improving the strain.