Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have finally started my AP system and have a 75 gallon aquarium in my house to hold tilapia fingerlings until my greenhouse is ready. My wife would like some "pretty" fish in the aquarium (I told her the tilapia are going to look very pretty on the dinner plate, but thats not what she meant). I would also like to make sure some other type of fish stays alive before I put some fingerlings in it. What type of cheap tropical fish can I get that will not eat the tilapia and vice versa?

Thanks,
Harry - Orlando FL

Tilapia in the house aquarium is work and smell Gravel cleaning once a week water changes... But they seem to get along fine with goldies. Might have trouble with other cichlids. Mine haven't shown any signs of aggression yet but aren't breeding size yet. When I get my greenhouse to meet LDWF specifications they are moving out! But as far as the Mrs. is concerned there is a California Koi tilapia that is somewhat flashy.

Tilapia are of the African cichlid family and as a general rule cichlids are aggressive, although there are degrees of aggressiveness and reasons for aggression (breeding, feeding, young rearing). I would suggest sticking to those type of fish. Having said that, there are some very beautiful species of cichlids (electric yellow, colbalt blue, reds, dazzeling stripes, personalities) and other aggressive species like the Jack Dempsy. Pay attention to the size of the fish introduced, their sex, their breeding habits, and their final size to determine the best chances of success. Also some docile and aggressive species can be successfully raised together if they have different habitats within the same tank- as an example I had a tire track eel (underground habitat, docile), a peacock eel (underground habitat, docile), shovel nose catfish (10", bottom habitat, docile unless you're a goldfish), plecostamous (maximum size 6 feet, ours was 2 foot; bottom habitat and sides to clean algae), two tiger oscars (10-12" full grown, cichlid, mainly middle and top, best to get very small and raise with larger fish as these grow fast), a jack dempsy (9-10" full grown, lower habitat, hides in rocks, aggressive very territorial cichlid, get small), a pair of breeding convicts (3" full grown, cichlid, lower, open areas, absolutely fearless in comparison to size) normally very mellow but when they were breeding, they would take over half of the community tank since they scrape a place clean and lay eggs. They were not as aggressive once the fry were protected in the mouth of the male. I had rock caves, deep gravel, an underground filter, artifical plants and lighting in a 55 gallon aquarioum and all of these gorgeous fish in one tank. Food was plenty and varied- red water worms, pellets and live goldfish. Everyone had their niche and when it was feeding time, there was a temporary truce to enter into each others space. After eating, they would return to their positions. The only ones that didn't leave their territories were the eels and the plec who basically went where ever it wanted and would use threatening gestures (flare fins, body arching and act like it would attack) if another fish got too close.

Oscars can be very interesting and downright fun- I had mine trained to jump for pellets and they would try to interact with you by follwing you as you walk around the tank and being nosey when you stick your hand in to adjust something inside their tank. They could also tell the difference between people as I could feed them by hand without concern and they would grab the pellet but my significant other would come back with bloody scratches on his fingers. But to show you how they can change, we had a 2 foot silver Arowana (top habitat) that was not raised with them (seperate 110 gallon tank, sole fish), one day my significant other decided he would look good in the community tank too. The territory overlapped with the Oscars and they ganged up on the Arowana who could not escape and killed it by ramming it on it's sides until it was ruptured inside. This was done that night when everyone had gone to bed. Needless to say, I was very upset- he was not my favorite fish- too flighty and spooky, would routinely break out of his tank through the top and wriggle on the floor on the end of his tail like a serpent until I could grab a towel to wrap him in and put him back in his tank. On top of that, his appetite was so enormous that he went from live gold fish to eventually small rats and it would disgust me to clean hair balls out of the tank- even the bones were dissolved. None the less every fish had a personality and beauty of their own. The only really negatives of keeping as many exotic fish as I had was the feed cost and the inabilty to get undiseased gold fish feeders. And guess what, I never used a water quality test kit the decades of raising fish; I just knew from the smell of the water or the behavior of the fish that something was wrong.

I have a single hybrid tilapia in a tank in my house.

He has tried to kill every South American anything I have put in with him, including a pacu that was 3x his size! He killed off all other tilapia that he started out with as well.

He lives very peacefully with (and you might not believe me, but its true) a school of zebra danios and a school of giant danios. The danios started out a school of 30 4 years ago. The giant danios started out a school of 14. I suspect there are about 40 of each in there now. They spawn regularly.

I put a pleco in with him about 3 years ago. The pleco is armored and can take what ever the tilapia wants to give it. Sometimes they spar sometimes they are fine. The pleco instigates the sparing as often as the tilapia.

Hi Harry!

I second the warning about tilapia in a display aquarium. If you are keeping it warm and feeding them to grow fast, it will require a lot more cleaning than you probably want to do. Also, they can start breeding while still quite small and young. Like some of my tilapia babies from May last year were breeding that same summer. I have only kept a dozen tiny tialpia in my indoor aquarium but I'm not managing to grow enough plants inside to keep the nitrates down and am having to do water changes (and that is keeping the water in the low 70's.)

However, tilapia can be quite pretty themselves but if you are keeping small numbers of them in an indoor aquarium, they are likely to be very aggressive. If you are keeping large numbers then it isn't likely to be a pretty display aquarium for long as the work in keeping it clean enough will probably drive you nuts. (I'm annoyed by the ten gallon aquarium needing water changes and there is no pretty gravel in there to need cleaning.)

Of course, I know very little about keeping pretty display aquarium so I would recommend following the advice of the more experienced if that is what you want to do. Perhaps visit Aquatic Eco Systems and chat a bit if Jerry is at the desk.

Keep in mind that male tilapia will move every single pebble on the bottom of the tank to one side when they decide to build a spawning bed. They'll move any plants (real or not) too. It makes it pretty hard to keep a "pretty" aquarium. Sometimes they will leave things alone if no females are present. Other times, they'll do it anyway.

They should well with Red claw crayfish. They in Jamaican rivers systems, introduced for aquaculture couple years back. Now we have Jamaican hybrids like Tilapia RED!