Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What kind of tilapia do you have? Mine have not grown fast.... mossambicus... heard now that they are slow growing. Planning on getting some Nile tilapia if I can and breeding them with these. They grow fast.

I believe I have "rocky mountain white" tilapia, a hybrid cross of nilotica and aurea.

Mine come from a long chain of APers. If I remember correctly, Janet Pellier bought some from Miami Aquaculture (http://www.miami-aquaculture.com/tilapia.htm). Hers had babies, and she sent a few to GotFish? His had babies, and I have some of those.

Since these look like they started as hybrids, I have no idea what they really are, but they sure are growing fast.

They're mostly silver/white with the darker stripes, and a few are a darker gray with darker stripes.

D'oh! That's Janet Pelletier. Didn't go back and check. Bad Karen!

Yes. Nicotica will do it. Are fast growers. Is what I want to breed mine with. Like the hardiness of those I have so don't want to lose that. Actually haven't a clue what they are... put in 4 kinds and came out with these. Just know they need to grow faster.

Mine are silver with green tinges with a beautiful turquoise - lips go strong metallic turquoise in breeding season - not sure if the male or female or both - and they have such beautiful rainbow tails... somewhat like guppies! I think they are really neat!

I want to do an indoor tank - somewhat like TCLynx - just so I can watch them and learn up close and personal Sure do love these little guys! LOL

Swan, thanks for the affermation (sp?) that I can count to at least 24.
Ate my first T the other day after a three day purge, not tasty at all and in fact I just had a small bite. So a longer purge for the next one I guess before I make up my mind.
Hope you get thru winter just fine. I think as long as you keep the water above 55 they will survive no problem. Bah, I ramble.
Nice toe shot, no teasing just Bam.

The tilapia are getting big:



I added a growlight to the gb here. Even my watercress was dying from lack of light...

Grrr. I had to pull my strawberry plant this morning due to aphids. I'd tried blowing them off with water, but there just wasn't anything to eat them once they hit the ground. And the aphids were moving to other plants.

Now the strawberry plant is out in the -5degF weather. Survive that, aphids!

That bed is mostly various lettuces and cresses now. My watercress is trying to take over. I was warned...

Hi Karen:
I hadn't realized until reading your posts higher up that your fish are cousins of my fish! Tell them their cousins say "Hi!"

DD, done!

A few weeks ago I pulled all of the fish out of my kitchen AP setup, because I had an infestation of slugs. I then poured boiling water over the growbed, which I think killed them all. Alas, it also killed the red worms I had put in the bed, and I'm sure it killed the bacteria.

But I had left the fish tank and sump tank untouched, and covered in the usual biofilm, so the bacteria could recolonize quickly. After it had cycled a bit, I put back the pleco and the crayfish, who was having a tough time fighting off the tilapia in the front porch system.

On June 28th, I replanted the bed.

One of the most amazing things about AP (to me) is how dang quickly things sprout! It's 3 days later, and look!


Asian greens sprouting.

These three pics aren't as good, but the same stuff going on:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zZ ... directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rD ... directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Mf ... directlink

I have fry!!

Not very many, and I made many, many mistakes, but I have fry!

I moved a male and what I thought were two female into my kitchen system a few weeks ago, turned up the heat, and waited to see what happened. Basically, the girls got beat up. But at one point I accidentally made one of them spit out eggs. AFAICT, the eggs all went over the SLO into the sump. Sad, but a learning experience. I moved the two girls back into the main tank (and salted) and they recovered quickly. I also put a filter over the bottom of the SLO. I'd taken it out earlier because all the fish were big enough, and it was getting mucked up.

I moved two more fish, which I thought were female, back into the kitchen tank, but I think only one was female. I gotta say, I'd be lucky if I'm running about a 50% success rate on my tilapia sexing. I never saw her with eggs in her mouth, but then this evening I saw a few unhatched eggs floating in the water. A closer look revealed a few tiny, tiny fry! So I hussled the adults out of there, and made the place a little more fry friendly. This female too was pretty beaten up. I think I'm going to have to look into that lip-clipping, and definitely find better hides.

I'm sure I lost lots of fry to the adults snacking, and I'd bet I lost a lot to the sump (although I've been checking the sump regularly) but I did it, I bred tilapia! There are still a few eggs floating around, but I assume they won't hatch now that Mom is out of the tank. There's also a crayfish in this tank, but he's slow and the tilapia are tiny and speedy, and I'm not terribly worried.

I've only been able to count 8 fry at once and they're not much bigger than a comma. Tiny blue eyes and a hint of a tail. But to be honest, my setups really can't fit more fish, so I don't think I'll try to breed again until I get a bigger setup (which is in the works).

I'm also a bit concerned because a fair number of my tilapia seem a bit deformed. One of the female's mouth is so small she still can't eat a pellet on her own, and a few have what look like bony bumps off the sides of their mouths. And a few have what look like pimples next to their mouths. In fact, at first I thought it was a pellet entrained in their wake. These are at least 4th generation AP tilapia (Miami Aqua -> Janet P. -> GotFish? -> me) and I wonder if there isn't some inbreeding going on, especially since these are hybrids. Who knows what's coming out in the 4th generation?

If I get serious about breeding (for myself and maybe a few other local APers) I suspect I'd buy a new breeding set from Miami Aqua.

But, I have fry! Another AP milestone crossed!

Congrats Mum..

Nice work!

So, if your sexing is only 50-50, why bother? *grin*

I've been wondering about the possible effectiveness of dark places for females to hide. I have about twenty and no beating-up at all: anyone that wishes simply goes into the 16' (5 meter) deep cave where light never penetrates. Could several long tubes (whatever length it takes for darkness) with a cap on one end act as good hides for females?

Or might they hide too well and end up with infertile eggs?

Sizing of hides is usual method ,, males usually much larger.

The fish tank (on left, grey) really isn't big enough for a lot of hides,

,
and the larger diameter PVC that I bought floats. Still looking for other options.

Tank is a fine size for fry, though!

Hi Karen!

I too have several in each generation that are mutants. There are a couple of the ones I have now (2nd or 3rd generation) that almost don't have mouths. I thought about removing them to keep their crappy genes out of the pool but never did. I think if you eliminate the weird ones you could keep the population less mutant-y.