Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

I have already bought most of the equipment to build up my aquaponic system with Tilapia fish.

My question is about the fish tank size. My fish tank is 58 Gallon, and I'm not sure if this is fine or not, and how many Tilapia fish it will be able to hold? I was thinking of having five pairs of Tilapia fish (10 pcs). Is this a reasonable number?

I also have a small fish tank, where I'm planning to host the fish fingerlings in? It's around Gallons. How many can I include here?

I will be looking forward to hearing from you,

A heavily stocked system is about one pound of fish per 5 gallons of water, and this will only be sustainable if all the other parameters are adequate (wet media volume, water flow, filtration, etc.). I breed tilapia in my 50 gallon aquarium. My recent brood was about 250 fish. I use a Penplax 700 filter, and an additional 5 gallon bucket with K1 media and a filter pad for biofiltration. This kept the fish going up to about 1". Now I am dispersing them into other systems. I will put about 150 fish into my 800 gallon system.

If I was going to raise tilapia in 58 gallons I think about 10- 15 fry will be okay for a while, but at the end you should only have about 6 - 8 1# fish in a tank that small.

Many thanks for the detailed feedback. So, I will go for 3 adult Paris, and will consider adding the filter to the system.
I understand that they be able to produce fish fingerlings under those conditions. But will the parents eat their kids? I mean will I need to immediately sperate them? And how will I be able to control this if yes.

If you intend to breed, then I recommend only 3 fish; one male and two females. pH should be near 8.0 and temp 88 degrees. There should also be some specific items in the tank to allow the male to nest and the females to shelter. You should visit lakewaytilapia.com, they have some excellent recommendations for breeding practices. I followed their recommendations and within three weeks I had a brood of over 200 fry.