Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Today I have had my Tilapia for one month, so Im still new to this. Ive learned a lot in the past month from just watching the fish's behavior but there are some things I'm not sure where it went wrong.

Details:

Tank size - 55gal
# of Fish - 1 male, 4 females
Water condition - very good. Water is clear and there are no issues with testing.
Temp - 80-84 F

Just over a week after I got the fish sorted into their tanks, I wasn't sure of the sex of a few of them. Took one out to try to sex it and noticed small round things on her belly. Panicked, looked towards her head (I had her in a small hand net and was holding her in the net while I inspected her) and saw tons of eggs. Immediately put her and the eggs back into the water. She didnt pick them up. No hatch.

About a week later, I notice one of the smaller females doing the "mouth thing". Got excited and peeked through the glass to see her mouth full of eggs. I watched her for 2 days (never disturbed the fish at all). On the 3rd day I noticed her chin wasnt protruding down as much. Then, right in front of me she spit out a cluster of eggs, maybe 50 to 100. She never picked them back up. No hatch.

Since then, my fish have finally gotten an appetite. They eagerly eat the pellets I feed them whereas the first few weeks I never seen them eat. Also in this time, I threw a few feeder goldfish into their tank and they chased/ate these goldfish with no hesitancy. I had read adult tilapia were herbavores but mine def are not.

This morning I did my routine feeding. All 5 fish ate nicely. Just a few mins ago I go out to take a gander and sure enough, the first female that spawned (whose eggs ended up in the net) has a mouth full of eggs again.

Im stocked! But Im also not sure what to do. Not had any luck at all with the previous 2 spawns so I want to make sure I do this right. Can I just leave her in there with the others and try to partition her off with a net basket or something? Im afraid if I touch her she'll spit the eggs like last time.

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CICHLIDS.. grew zillions of them.. few ever died.. none got eaten..

Left alone -- You will have a massive cull when eaten by the other fish, unless you strip them ..

Take a two ltr coke bottle..
Cut the base on opposite sides to make a handle, like a basket
Find a way to hang this in the fish tank or in any fish tank with lots of air..
Find some plastic pot scourer To make a filter plug for the bottle mouth.. just a round disk tight in the neck..

Now get a tiny aquarium pump with a length of very flexible tube..
Connect the pump via the hose to the bottle mouth.. sealed completely.
Hang the bottle in your chosen place and
Set the pump running and then adjust the height of the bottle until the water only just overflows the top at the handle you made..

Now catch the mother.. quickly......., and have a bucket ready.. filled with pond water,
Hold her , head down and squeeze the corners of her mouth to open her mouth.
Dunk her head in and out of the bucket and wash the eggs out.

You have to plan and walk they the process so you know what to do and do it quickly to stop her eating the eggs..

Once all eggs are out, throw her back in the pond and put the eggs into the coke bottle, where they will sink to the bottom and then get tumbled by the small water current, just as in the mother's mouth..

They should all hatch, and you could have hundreds..

Watch them and look for ones going milky and suck them out with a pipette a.d feed to the fish ..
Usually the infertile or dud eggs will float out and overflow to be eaten by the fish

Now you will need a grow pen for when they hatch,

So, let it happen naturally and you may end up with few fish..

Make a tumbler and you will get 100% survival..
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PS.. the alternative is to take her out to a sheltered tank and wait..
But I found it far better to strip the mothers and let them get back to eating normally..

And they will spit the eggs if stressed.. so again... don't attempt to touch her until ready to play surrogate..
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@BuiDoi - This is very interesting, do you mind attaching a diagram on your construction to help us see the picture more clearly?

Regards

It really sounds like you are bothering your fish too much but if you really had nothing to do with the female spitting out the eggs the second time, it is likely stress/harassment from the male. Break up the tank with obstacles and if possible add fish to help with schooling/aggression protection.

in a backyard setting, i dont like stripping eggs because of stress and potential damage to the fish. And it's incorrect to say that you will have 100% success with tumbler. It's rare you will get all of the eggs when stripping , the fish will usually spit and swallow some, not to mention some will likely be crushed in the net by the flopping fish.


I dont make egg tumblers the same way but i have pictures in my post here. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20111&hilit=tilapia#p433075

-edit- I just noticed my picture links are broken because i moved my hosting box. I will try to get them back up in the next 24 hours.

p.s. There's 9+ years of info on this forum and you have been doing this for a couple months. Its probably safe to say you arent experiencing anything unique, new or interesting at this juncture. There's lots of great threads about basic tilapia topics from people with lots of experience that dont even visit this forum anymore, so it's unlikely they are going to respond to your new thread asking the same question that gets asked every week... so do yourself a favor and search.

With all due respect, that could be said about any topic on a forum. And in that case, the forum would wither from lively discussion. Also, there is a lot of conflicting info on forums. Much of it comes by trial and error. If a post from 2010 told me to separate her into a new tank by herself it may not hold as much weight as a post from 4 or 5 years later where people have had more time to learn the trade.

I did separate the female into her own 1/3 of the tank via a glass partition. The remaining fish stay on the other side so I can tell they do want to get to where she is. Regarding bothering them too much, I visit the tank 2 to 3 times a day to feed them and cycle about 20% of their water once a week. Other than that I never put my hands or anything into the tank so I don't think its that I'm stressing them.

The egg tumbler is interesting but I'd really rather just let her do her thing naturally if that is an option. If she continues to spit the eggs out then I'll have to look into using one. This is her 2nd spawning (I think the only reason she spit the eggs out the first time is because I had her out of the tank trying to sex her at the time). The 2nd female who spawned and I watched her spit the eggs out into the water has not spawned a 2nd time yet.

personally, i find it very difficult to find good/lively discussions because all the threads are the same basic questions over and over.

I hope my old post helped, assuming you bothered to read a related post that you didnt even have to search for.