Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

When breeding Mozambique Tilapia, can you overbreed the females?

We have a 55 gallon aquarium we have been trying to grow smaller tilapia before putting them outside where we have larger tilapia. However a few of them are about 3-5 inches and have already started to breed unexpectedly. Over the past month, the male has already bred with 2 females, and is trying to breed with them again. I'm concerned that to much breeding may stress out and/or weaken the female to a point she will become ill or die, because 1. He chases them till they are ready to breed 2. they stop eating while caring eggs.

We do want to eventually breed tilapia in order to keep our outdoor system stocked, but we aren't ready for that quite yet since we only have 2 fish tanks cycled.

Try keeping the water cooler. They won't breed unless the water is warm enough.

Tilapia are prolific breeders and will breed about every 6 weeks. This is normal. I dont know that it will shorten the life expectancy because this behavior is expected. It does take up a lot of energy and could affect growth rates but these are your breeder.

I am curious though, how are you planning to keep your tilapia alive outdoors year round in north texas?

Our tilapia aren't more than 6 months old, but the male must be horny ALL the time. He has yet to give the 2 females we have a beak. He has bred with both females twice now, in about 6 weeks. However the first few batches of fry were all eaten. We were able to save the last batch and have about 100 now growing. Now we have him separated from the females since we don't know what to do with more fry and don't have a way to cool down the temps in our tank.

As for heating the pond, this our first year trying aquaponics. One thought was to use a water heater element in the pond itself, with a safeguard around it so the fish don't come to close. We also thought about moving them into an IBC tote in our garage.

2kwatt... That should keep a good sized tank warm, how much do we pay for for electricity her in texas? 12-16c kwh?

Let say someone has a 250 gallon ibc tank.. maybe 20-25lbs of tilapia and a very well insulated outdoor tank. Lets say during the coldest 4 months span from the middle of nov to the middle of march this someone could use this 2kw heater on average of 4 hours per day to keep their tank about 60 degrees. (the rough minimum to avoid tilapia death but not high enough for the tilapia eat and grow much)


2kw * 4hour * 120 days *$.14 kwatt hours = $134 to keep 25 lbs of tilapia alive.. that filleted may come out to 33% of that weight... 8-8.5 lbs of the cheapest, most tastless (IMHO), easily available fish meat in the grocery store.




Just an illustration of why i dont use tilapia , you may be able to get better results.

The only thing you could worry about is the male picking on the female too much. If you only a have a few fish (probably less than 5) you can see that occur and over time it can kill the fish. It is all about population density. The higher the stocking density with cichlids the better off they are. If you house 3 of them together one will be killed off, if you house 300 together none will have a single ripped fin from aggression.

Also, if you are interested in some more info on spawning tilapia. I tossed this together real fast recently:

http://greenmountainaquaponics.wordpres ... a-culture/

I wish I had your problem. I can't get my aquarium kept tilapia to breed. But every once in awhile when I'm in search of a new male from my outdoor system, I get one with a mouth full of eggs. Unfortunately they don't survive in the out door system.

WhAt is your pH, nitrates and temp?

Thanks

how long is the light cycle in your aquarium? besides temperature the biggest factor in breeding behavior is light cycle.

I keep my breeding tanks at 16h on / 8 off. any temps above 70 degrees should be fine but i would try for around 78-80 degrees.


brian

My lights are on from 6am to midnight. Tilapia are about 10 inches long. 1 male and 4 females ( I think, lol). Temp at 80-82. Maybe the lights are on too long? Also. They seem to eat non stop. They are in a. 75 gallon aquarium with a 75 gallon sump. PH is about 7.5ish. I do 50% water changes with rain water and raise pH as needed with lime. I have been changing out what I think is the male very month now. Been trying to breed them august.