# whos raising tilapia?



## pmondo (Oct 6, 2007)

got few questions thanks in advance
how big is your tank?
how many fish in the tank?
how big do you grow them before harvesting?
which species are you raising?
are you growing plants with them like in grow beds?
do you buy the food or do you feed them duck weed?


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## Pices (Oct 17, 2014)

Why do you ask these question?


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## pmondo (Oct 6, 2007)

i am thinking about raising them wanted to see how others are doing


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## Radams1265 (Mar 2, 2016)

I'm curious about this


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## pmondo (Oct 6, 2007)

well 203 views looks like nobody is raising tilaphia


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## Mallow (Aug 4, 2006)

I can't keep the water temp up high enough. I raise trout in winter and doing catfish/hybrid blue Gill during the summer. If you can keep the temperature above 75 degrees, I say go for it.


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## pmondo (Oct 6, 2007)

the tilaphia breeder says I need 85 degree water


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## Mallow (Aug 4, 2006)

pmondo said:


> the tilaphia breeder says I need 85 degree water


Usually they will survive to lower but I think 85 is optimal.


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## ijon1 (Feb 27, 2014)

I have raised them in my heated garage. I had them in a ibc with a bio filter. I got them when they were tiny. I put them in my farm pond later on that year in a cage till they were big enough to let loose. They help control algae. They are a very hardy fish. You just have to keep the nitrates out of their water. I saw a filter since then made from another ibc filled plastic stuffing. It should be more than enough for a filter. It was fun to watch to see them cruise around the pond in a school. Hope this helps.


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## ijon1 (Feb 27, 2014)

I thought there would be a conversation about the Tilapia


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## Radams1265 (Mar 2, 2016)

All the research I have done I see tilapia as a very profitable fish if you can find a market. ( restaurant, store,bar) but also very power intensive. I plan to mess around with a small aquaponic/ aquaculture operation with tilapia and Lettuce greens. Local school and restaurants would love the greens while bars would love tilapia. My plan would be to do a aquaculture with tilapia which would be in turn a ecosystem. Where the tilapia would provide nutrients for duckweed and duck weed provide nutrients for the fish. I hear all this about the "Garbage fish" but they only get that name because when you look at the package at the store it says "product of china/other foreign country's"


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## chaossmurf (Jan 6, 2017)

yeah the biggest problems with tilapia is finding a market that respects your not growing trash-fish (the overseas tilapia that's grown in miserable conditions& tastes like mud ---similar to overseas catfish) but once they try yours that's well raised ---they'll be turned off towards the overseas mud-tasting ever hear the term mudcats ??? same thing with poorly grown anything


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## HavenFarm (Feb 6, 2017)

My tilapia got water much colder than 85 and they were just fine. 

Tank was about 3x3x7 and attached home made filter with grow beds. You do the math and tell me how many gallons hay was. 

I had 30 tilapia, something like 10ish bluegill, and about 3 pletcos. 

I never weighed them but they were big girls when I ate them. 

Yes I grew plants in grow beds above the fish tank that dumped right back into the tank. 

I bought food but I tried feeding duck weed. Guess they were so used to the pellets they didn't pay much attention to the duck weed. 

Hope this helps.


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## tired_gardener (Dec 14, 2016)

I have not yet raised them, but that is in the overall plan. Many things in line ahead of it, but I've been reading about aquaponics and solar greenhouses in anticipation of setting up this system.


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## HavenFarm (Feb 6, 2017)

tired_gardener said:


> I have not yet raised them, but that is in the overall plan. Many things in line ahead of it, but I've been reading about aquaponics and solar greenhouses in anticipation of setting up this system.



Depending on your temperatures during winter and what not you may want to consider building a heater for your tank. I'd say buy, but I'm cheap, and it honestly isn't too difficult. I went to the good ol YouTube University and my dad and I built a really good one for about $30.00 ant it heated the whole thing so well I almost cooked all my fish...


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## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

I missed this thread... I am raising Blue tilapia. I haven't had them for long but I got them started in September/October and my numbers have gone up and up and up since then. Blue tilapia can handle colder water than other tilapia species, they can manage down to about 45F but they slow/stop growing the lower the water temp. Best growth from what I've read is about 85F. I'm keeping mine between 80 - 85F depending on which tank they are in.

Right now I have a 55 gallon tank with my original 11 tilapia in it. I have not measured them for length or weight but I would guess they are in the 5-6" range, no clue on the weight yet. They are breeding age now and at least 4 of them are females which seem to be laying eggs about every 2 weeks. I've had scattered success so far with different methods of hatching eggs. First attempt when I saw a female had eggs I removed her to a second tank, she spit the eggs out in the net so I put them in the new tank with her because I was told she would pick them back up... she never picked them back up. The second attempt when I saw a female with eggs I caught her and took the eggs out of her mouth and hatched them in an egg tumbler and had 11 hatch and are growing successfully. Then I had a second batch with 10 or so hatch the same way. Then I was cleaning the general population tank one day and noticed a fry swimming in there so I rescued about 27 that hatched in gen pop before they got eaten by the other fish or filter. Then I had a couple batches that I'm assuming got eaten because they had eggs then I never saw them in the big tank after they hatched. A couple nights ago I saw a female with eggs so I took her out and rinsed the eggs out of her mouth and put them in the tumbler but I think they have all died, most are not tumbling anymore, I think they had a fungus start to grow on them which wiped them out (lesson here is I need to have a separate hatching tank for the tumbler. I had them in the tumbler in a tank that has the last hatched batch in it so the nutrient level is higher and probably led to the fungus I think... so from now on tumbler will go in an empty tank that has never had fish in it).

The first batch of tilapia I ordered from Tampa Aquaculture. I ordered another 50 from them and had 15 die in shipping so I contacted them for replacements and they shipped me an entire 50 order instead of just replacing the 15 that had died or giving me store credit... plus I ordered 10 from Lakeway Tilapia to compare because they claim theirs are "pure strain" blue tilapia, whereas Tampa Aquaculture doesn't say if they are pure strain or not so might be crossed. 

So in total right now I have:
(11) 5-6" in a 55 gallon tank
(~35) 2-3" in a 40B tank
(~50) 1" in a 20H tank
(~10) 1" in a 10 gal tank
(~10) 1/2" in a 10 gal tank
(~30) 1/4" in a 10 gal tank

I have a 240 gallon aquarium built in to the wall between my family room and fish room. I am working on setting it up for the tilapia. I will put all of my tilapia (other than my breeders) in to this tank once they are big enough that the other fish shouldn't eat them. Then in my greenhouse I have a 330 gal IBC (which currently has 24 rainbow trout about 11-12" in it) and a 275 gal IBC that is cut off at about 200 gal. Once it warms up out there I'll move tilapia to the greenhouse to grow for the summer time when the trout move to freezer camp.


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## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

Oh for food, I'm feeding Purina Aquamax 400 to the tilapia. When they are too small to eat the whole pellet I crush the pellets with a mortar/pestle and feed them smaller crushed pellets. 

For those interested in passive solar greenhouse I have a thread on here documenting my build. It is still a work in progress but so far I'm seeing some success with it... it is very critical to seal all air leaks which I did not get done before winter so I'm losing a lot of heat through my foundation, but I'm still keeping the air inside 40-50F when outside temps are 0-30F, so I'll finish sealing air leaks this summer and have a few other things to finish up then hoping next winter I'll be growing throughout the winter... I've kept leafy veggies alive all winter long without sealing the air leaks, and I had tomato plants growing in to mid December in Michigan... so I have high hopes it will grow year round once all of the air leaks are fixed (and I'm building solar heaters for the greenhouse which will help too)


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## ijon1 (Feb 27, 2014)

Good information all around. Thanks.


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## oldasrocks (Oct 27, 2006)

To fix the foundation air and heat leaks spray foam on it. I built a house in Colorado in 77. I had foam sprayed on 4 ft deep before backfilling. The inside basement walls were warm to the touch. In 2,000 we bought this place in Mo.. The crawl space would get down to 34-36F and made the floor cold. I sprayed foam on the inside footing and now the temp stays around 50 degrees or more. The big spray kits are not cheap but cost effective. Do not wear plastic lens glasses when spraying. Wear old disposable clothing, hair shower cap and gloves.


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## phrogpharmer (Apr 25, 2005)

We've had an aquaculture operation since 1994 on about 1/4 acre of rented space at a Tilapia farm.

I don't participate in the Tilapia production, but I've seen how the farm is operated over the years. One person basically produces about 250,000 lbs of fish a year. He has two people help him load about 10,000 lbs of live fish on a truck every two weeks and these same two people do 2 hrs of chores on weekends. He works solo about 6 hrs a day on weekdays.
This farm has a geothermal artesian well that supplies about 2250 gpm of 102 degree water under presssure. There is also a cold water spring that gravity flows 58 degree water through a pipe to the farm. The water is mixed to provide 85 degree water for the fish. More warm water is used in the winter and more cold water is used in the summer.
This is a profitable farm.
I know this situation doesn't fit with what most homesteader aquaculturists are doing but I thought it would be good to show that unique situations can provide great opportunities.


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