Using live tilapia as food

[JeBassMaster]

Question for everyone:

I'm going to be purchasing some temensis bass in the near future. I have had some in the past, and if honest I will be attempting to grow the world record with these. I have a 5000 gallon plus pond in my backyard that will be heated and sustained to house them, but in the meantime am planning to grow them out in a 30 gallon, to a 150, and then to a 1000 gallon pool pond as interim.

Anyways, my point with this is that I want to use live tilapia that I would farm myself as one of many food sources for them. I know a lot of people don't like to feed live, but I reckon if they are farmed in a closed system that is clean and maintained well, they would be an excellent source of food. Has anyone tried this for cichla or other predators and had any good results with growth? Again, I'm looking to grow truly giant fish here, and really push the growth of these fish to the maximum. My plan is to feed them tilapia fry as juveniles, along with market shrimp and pellets, and as they get large enough, add in live crawfish, bluegill, trout, golden shiners, etc, all of which would be grown in my backyard pond. Thoughts?

 

[Aqua Anteater]

Sounds quite interesting.. I've seen temensis p. bass get pretty big pretty fast even in smaller systems. Personally the biggest one I've seen was a 32-33 inch one that was only 3 years old but it was in a 3000 gallon tank that was connected to a 15k gallon system. But I'm sure your bass will get bigger since you will have a few advantages over growing them in an aquarium. Having natural sunlight and slight temp. changes should help.

 

[Aqua Anteater]

Here is a video of the same temensis but I saw this fish a year after this video was taken. The bass is around 26+ inches in this video. It has missing top fins because it was attacked by gars when it was much smaller.

 

[Midwater]

Yes, I use a combination of tilapia fry and ghost shrimp for my predators. I have had staggering growth rates. I believe tilapia is a great food source and importantly is low in thiaminase.

There are a couple of drawbacks:

Of course you will hear from many sources about parasites. I have previously bought from closed tank sources where the fry were specifically bred as feeders, but now I can only get them pond reared. I keep them in a temporary tank for a day or so and treat with lavamisole.

Most of the fry get eaten by the predators, but a few - maybe one in a hundred or so - evade getting eaten, and grow. I inevitably get the occasional one that grows too large to be eaten, by cannibalizing and living off the ghost shrimp. Actually, large tilapia are not bad looking fish, but I don't want them in my tank, and they are bloody hard to get out.

 

[JeBassMaster]

Sounds quite interesting.. I've seen temensis p. bass get pretty big pretty fast even in smaller systems. Personally the biggest one I've seen was a 32-33 inch one that was only 3 years old but it was in a 3000 gallon tank that was connected to a 15k gallon system. But I'm sure your bass will get bigger since you will have a few advantages over growing them in an aquarium. Having natural sunlight and slight temp. changes should help.

Yes, that is quite a bass in that video. I think another advantage I will have is that these tems that I will have will be the primary predators in the pond. I will only have 4 of them and two largemouth bass, and that will be all the predator species I will have, the rest is all forage species for them. I think having the fish be outside in a more natural environment will certainly boost their happiness and healthiness as well, closer to a wild fish.

 

[JeBassMaster]

Yes, I use a combination of tilapia fry and ghost shrimp for my predators. I have had staggering growth rates. I believe tilapia is a great food source and importantly is low in thiaminase.

There are a couple of drawbacks:

Of course you will hear from many sources about parasites. I have previously bought from closed tank sources where the fry were specifically bred as feeders, but now I can only get them pond reared. I keep them in a temporary tank for a day or so and treat with lavamisole.

Most of the fry get eaten by the predators, but a few - maybe one in a hundred or so - evade getting eaten, and grow. I inevitably get the occasional one that grows too large to be eaten, by cannibalizing and living off the ghost shrimp. Actually, large tilapia are not bad looking fish, but I don't want them in my tank, and they are bloody hard to get out.

Thanks for your reply, what kind of growth rates have you had? Like 2 inches per month or so? I have read people getting 3 inches a month with temensis, one guy having his hit 28 inches in 9 months, and another over 25" in just a year. I know every predator is different and genetics have a role, but I think I can expect fairly similar growth comparison if the food is the same.
On the note of parasites, I am getting my tilapia from an aquaponics shop in Florida, liveaquaponics.com is the name. They have breeding colonies of tilapia and bluegill, amongst other things, but I think they will have fairly healthy fish.

 

[Midwater]

what kind of growth rates have you had?

The comparison is not the same, I have not kept peacock bass.

Datnoids - in a large tank - I have grown from two inches to fifteen in a year.