Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Awesome little vid there Johnnie...wish we were closer I'd be swappin fishes with you.

http://aquanic.org/beginer/tilapia/tilapia.htm
many links on this page are no longer active, but some still are…have a look


http://www.aquanic.org/discuss/tilapia.htm
THE Tilapia Discussion Group

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/fish/international/monotil.htm
the best link for help with determining sex

http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/ef ... Tilapia%22
good feeding info

haha......what the?????

I just lost one .. a big male jumped out of its wheelie bin!

These fish are amazing!

Do you still have any of those tilapia J7? Does anyone have a quick conditions summary for the tilapia? eg. temperature, pH etc.

Tim...

You'll have to do the conversions, but best temps are around 80 degrees F

mortality occurs below 59 degrees F and above 90 degrees F

Ph...5-9 optimum is neutral

Very tolerable of salinity and basically indestructable. You need to keep girls and boys seperate if you plan on eating them otherwise they breed and are too busy to grow out. Be prepared (if you house the girls and boys together) for babies at 80 degrees F.

There's a link to the manual somehwere on this thread...ill see if i can dig it up

80f -> 26c
59 - 90 = 15 -> 32c

farenheit to celsius: (and vicki verka)
C =(f-32)*5/9
F = c*9/5 +32

Hey a friend of mine said it was best to sex the tilapia so that they don;t reproduce like bunnies. Whats your thoughts on how to do this in a one tank system? should i just fry the girls up and let the boys grow?

jtjf_1 - your friend is correct. In a one tank system it's six of one, half dozen of the other. Your options are:

1) Keep both sexes in one tank and do more carving for the same amount of meat

2) Pay for mixed sex fingerlings and dispose of the girls once they are big enough to determine sex.

You will get best growth results from all male stock and can crowd them in better. Check out the links at Auburn University posted about three messages up and it tells you how to sex them by hand.

If you have a cheap source of fingerlings it would be more cost efficient (and space efficient) to simply let the source handle the breeding. In my case I do not have that option so I have been developing my own breeding program. It really doesn't take much to be succesful and it adds the true aquaculture dimension to Aquaponics.

jtjf_1 and TimC ....Here is the manual I was referring to. It's extremely handy.

http://www.cherrysnapper.com/downloads/ ... %20HOME%22

sex determination for Tilapia....

First picture is diagram

Second is a female. You can make out the oviduct (red dot) next to the anal fin.

I can get "African Cichlids" from the local aquarium shop. They look a lot like Tilapia. Is this another name for Tilapia?

There are many species of cichlid. Tilapia is a name given to just a few of the African cichlid species.

The species I play around with is the Mozambique mouthbrooder. (Oreochromis mossambicus)

Other tilapia species include:-

Blue tilapia (Oreochromis aureus)

Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus niloticus)

Spotted tilapia or black mangrove cichlid (Tilapia mariae)

Banded tilapia (Tilapia sparrmanii)

Redbelly tilapia (Tilapia zilii )

Zebra Tilapia (Tilapia Buttikoferi Cichlidae)

Sarotherodon galilaeus galilaeus


Also there are varieties and hybrids within these categories and I think there has been some success with some crosses.

In the USA I believe they grow some really beautiful red and pink mozambiques.

A google image search will pull up pleanty of nice photos.

Oh .. I think that they are illegal to breed sell or own in most States in Aus apart from WA.

Thanks Johnnie - I'm still trying to pin down what the law is in Victoria. There are certainly restictions.