Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've never had problems with adult Tilapia eating their babies. The slightly bigger fry however are a problem. My experience is that they are carnivorous to about 8 weeks and their favourite food is their smaller brothers and sisters.

Cheers

That's the exact ratio I use at my hatchery. Also, the more fish you have the less they can become too territorial. More like "speed dating" than settling down and raising a brood. The results are also better.

Cheers

hay guys just wandering what any of you may think about getting the Tilapia fry out of the mouth of the brood fish and putting them in to fry savers? those little fine mesh boxes you hang on the side of you aquarium.

i think i have two females with either eggs or fry in there mouths and I don't know if it would be better to wait till they appear on there own or would i get a better result if i strip the fish of there eggs or fry? as in would i get a better rate of fry recovery?

thanks.

Is often done that way ,, make her spit the fry and seperate them ,, then get her back to the males to do what she is suppose to do.

Stripping eggs is probably only worth it if you have a good aerating incubator/hatcher set up.

Stripping fry from the mothers works if you can easily do it without too much extra stress on the fish and have a good place to keep the fry.

i intend to keep the fry in the same tank in fry savers for a few weeks and then in an aquarum of there own.

as it turnd out i was getting prepared to strip what i expected to be fry from the brood fish and guess what? there was no need there was i guess around 200 little fry in a tight school around one of the females, so i scooped them up and put them in a fry saver as quick as i could!

will be seting up a new small tank during the week.

hay, i have a question for the Tilapia breeders out there, it seams that most of the ??? broods i am geting have swim blader problems, so far 2 broods have been fine and 3 broods from the time i put them in the fry saver they simply lay on the bottom and eventuly all die, all but a few that swim like crazy to the serface to feed then as soon as they stop swimming they sink to the bottom and it seams they are never full of food unlike the normal looking fry.

any suggestions as to what is going wrong??

thanks people.

sorry for my spelling!!

Are these fry stripped from the mothers or are they being released naturally? If they are being stripped, perhaps it is too soon? Also, what is your salt level in the water, tilapia like a bit of salt so perhaps that would help? Otherwise I don't know much about that situation since I've had the best luck letting things happen naturally in a tank full of duckweed.

TCLynx, i net the fry out of the tank when i see them because i have found the fry have been getting eaten.

could i be netting them out to soon?

i dont have salt in the breeder tank but i wil remidy that tonight.

cheers.

If the fry still have egg sacs attached they are not "free swimming" When I strip eggs and very young fry, I use an incubator or "egg tumbler" to oxygenate the fry and eggs. At this stage the fry try to swim to the surface but then sink back to the bottom of the tank. They would normally be taken up by the mother at this stage but if there are older fry in the same tank they will definitely be eaten. They are firstly attacked by the egg sac and then quite ruthlessly slaughtered by their older siblings. UGLY !!

Here is an image of "egg sac" fry who have just started getting some balance. They are too young to be fending for themselves but will be OK if they are not with slightly more mature fry.

synaptoman, thanks for that, i am thinking i am taking them out of the main tank a little to early or it may have somthing to do with how i take them out as i have a few fry that have servived from the first spawning that still have problems, they are around 2 cm long and strugle to swim to the surface.
the two lots of spawn that are doing well i left in the tank for a day and a half before tacking them out and they are doing well.

thanks.

If you are not physically stripping them from their mothers, it probably means that they are stressed in some way and spitting them out early. The best scenario is where the mother cares for them for as long as possible. I have also found very young mothers spitting out eggs and semi-formed fry prematuraly. Other reasons, noise, flashing lights, kids or pets bothering the fish, water quality, temperature fluctuations, dissolved oxygen fluctuations. If the problem persists, consider stripping eggs and incubating them yourself in controlled conditions. My yield using this method is about 3 times better than letting the mothers (especially young ones) raise the fry.

Good luck

synaptoman, I think I might try that, stripping fry and eggs and incubating them, do you have any tips for me and do you have some photoes in any of your threads?

i did see some fry in the tank a week ago but they seem to have disapeared! i even left some fry in there a while ago and one of the fry got to about 2cm long then vanished!

so I think i need to take matters into my own hands!

I've designed and built yet another (Mark#3) incubator design and I am busy testing it. If it works with the small sample of eggs I put in yesterday, I will probably strip eggs and young fry from 40-50 females today and will be sure to take photos of the process and post in this thread.

How did the new incubator/hatcher design work out for you Synaptoman?