Tilapia for weed control

[roymunson]

My pond is starting to get better, but the amers weren't keeping up. Local place said they're putting tilapia in. They reproduce every 21 days, and aren't carniverous. So they'll eat my weeds like crazy, the fry will be a good food source for my predator fish, and as soon as we get a couple hard frosts, it'll kill them all off as they're a tropical fish.

Seems good, but I'm skeptical too. Seeing if any of you guys have heard of this tactic.

 

[ksgobbler]

My pond is starting to get better, but the amers weren't keeping up. Local place said they're putting tilapia in. They reproduce every 21 days, and aren't carniverous. So they'll eat my weeds like crazy, the fry will be a good food source for my predator fish, and as soon as we get a couple hard frosts, it'll kill them all off as they're a tropical fish.

Seems good, but I'm skeptical too. Seeing if any of you guys have heard of this tactic.

Several topics over on the pondboss forums on it

 

[roymunson]

Several topics over on the pondboss forums on it

I'll check it out.

 

[H20fwler]

A guy I work with put some in his pond this spring, I had never even heard of stocking tilapia in home/farm ponds before he talked about it.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Roymunson covered it well

I have used them to control filamentous algae.. took about 3 weeks,but they cleaned it up pretty well

Large ones float to surface and die when water temps get~60 and less

I carry dip net and 5 gallon buckets as they die. Large ones are easy to filet!

Triploid grass carp work well for hydrilla control

bill

 

[roymunson]

So you're liking them to eat em too? How big are they growing in a summer? My boys caught some of the smallest hybrid BG i've ever seen last weekend, but had an absolute blast doing it. I'll take anything I can find to put fish on their hooks.

 

[TreeDaddy]

The ones that survive the bass predation are big enough to filet

bill