Tilapia

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J

Jrlevers

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 15, 2011
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Hey everyone! I was hoping someone on here had some experience with tilapia.

I have 3 100gal ponds in my basement. One is dedicated to growing duckweed, one is a tilapia grow out and the last has 6 channel cats.

I bought a group of 25 tilapia to grow out and breed in my system (the guy sent me 64...). My issue is that over the last 6 months I've noticed a terrible difference in their rate of growth. I have one that is close to 9 inches and is male. The second largest is a female. However more than 10 are only 2 to 2.5 inches.

Since they are cichlids I was hoping someone here who raises large cichlids might have insight as to why.

Are they runts that will never geo to full potential and should I cull them? Or should I give them more time to see if they grow up? Thanks.




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They all aren't in there now. I've lost 22 to "escapes" and death. 8 are in a breeder tank. There are only 34 in a 100 gallon.

My parameters are all zero. They are fed three times daily. Like I said some are ahead of the growth curve.

Intensive aquaculture can have 1 full grown individual per 4 gallons. I'm no where near that for the age/size of these fish.


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Jimmy16 said:
Holy, 64 tilapias in a 100 gallon. There's your problem. Not even 1 tilapia can grow to their full potential in a "pond" that size.


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Have you ever seen a Tilapia Farm? They are literally crammed together and have little swimming room.
Jrlevers said:
They all aren't in there now. I've lost 22 to "escapes" and death. 8 are in a breeder tank. There are only 34 in a 100 gallon.

My parameters are all zero. They are fed three times daily. Like I said some are ahead of the growth curve.

Intensive aquaculture can have 1 full grown individual per 4 gallons. I'm no where near that for the age/size of these fish.


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It's normal. Its how nature works. The strong will fight for the food/bully the weak to assure that they survive. I've always have that problem raising large cichlids lol. If you remove the larger ones, the rest will start to grow faster.
 
Water said:
Have you ever seen a Tilapia Farm? They are literally crammed together and have little swimming room.


It's normal. Its how nature works. The strong will fight for the food/bully the weak to assure that they survive. I've always have that problem raising large cichlids lol. If you remove the larger ones, the rest will start to grow faster.
Click to expand...

I have a third tank I can incorporate into the setup to isolate the smaller ones. I just wanted to evaluate if they were just not competing for food well or were actually probably genetic retards.



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Jrlevers said:
I have a third tank I can incorporate into the setup to isolate the smaller ones. I just wanted to evaluate if they were just not competing for food well or were actually probably genetic retards.



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They just aren't competing for food as well as they should. In nature, these runts would be the ones most likely to die/get eaten. I would like to point out even though when you separate them, the runts will rarely ever grow as big as the dominant ones. Also I read something about bigger fish excreting a hormone that inhibits the growth of the smaller fish. I haven't checked if it was true or not but it's something you can think about looking into.
 
all I know about tilapia is that they're delicious....all jokes aise, what is the purpose of this? to keep as pets or aquaculture experiment?
 
i might be wrong but in such a large group it seems that thye are having trouble fighting for dominance. u might have more males than females and there keeps being a power struggle and the smaller fish are the ones being knocked down. the ones at top of the todem pole will get larger.
 
First off I'm looking for a breeding pair or anything available. Do you have 1 cubic ft of space per fish? I could sure use sme Tilapia. I'm going to farm them if it's leagal in Nevada. Scott
 
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