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Joined: Dec 2004
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OP
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Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 10,346 |
Go find Dutch on here, he's the fish guy. You rang? Ok, tilapia in ponds. Plus: they are cheap. They make GREAT bass forage. Once mature (six inches or less, 4 months old or so), they will reproduce like mad, if circumstances are good. Like 1,500 every 25 days or so. They will winter kill in most of Texas, which is actually a good thing. You never have to worry about overcrowding your ponds with forage fish -- they just disappear every winter. A lot of the bass clubs are using tilapia -- also for the extra benefit of vegetation control. But mostly because they make an excellent, EXCELLENT bass forage. Until about a decade ago, I used to send a couple of truckloads of tilapia to Texas every Spring for pond management purposes. FWIW, most commercial tilapia are raised in monosex male populations, if you buy them for ponds make darn sure they are natural, mixed sex populations, or you're pee'n in the wind... The holy grail is to combine the tilapia with White Amur ( grass carp). Do pony up for the sterile carp, or you'll have sixteen gazillion of them at some point. Both tilapia and White Amur are fine table fare, with the carp being the better of the two. The carp will winter, I have had some that were 20 years old and big enough to put a saddle on... Anyway, the grass carp target the macrophytes, the larger rooted and "hard" plants. The tilapia will eat, well, everything else. They aren't quite filter feeders, but they will forage on very, very small plants. They need some higher quality protein to thrive (and bugs and assorted other animal protein sources, including higher order algae will do the job). They will keep things clean. Lower lethal temperature for Nile Tilapia is about 13C for any duration, so once water temps get into the 40's you can start making plans to restock. Thanks for both your and others reply. Not interested in eating them, just vegetation control. The 3 times neutered grass carp have to be signed off by a state biologist. When he came out he said I would have to build a 24" tall "fence" across the dam to prevent them from going down the gully and where ever. I'm not interested in doing that. It appears that the Tilapia "Mozambique type" will help and I will have to do something else for the water primrose. I am going to have to pitch a bunch of our small bass on the bank as we have too many. We just catch and release, but our friends are encouraged to take them home. The hybrid bluegill eat good I'm told.
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Joined: Feb 2016
Posts: 955
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Feb 2016
Posts: 955 |
You could excavate the pond and make it deeper.
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Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,619 Likes: 4
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,619 Likes: 4 |
We have a native cichlid here. The Rio Grande Perch. I’m sure they are endangered now. But they were sure good eating back in the day and fun on a fly rod. Not endangered at all. Known as "Texas Cichlid" in the aquarium trade, the fish is widely available to the hobbyist. It is the only Cichlid indigenous to USA, and is more tolerant of cooler water than most members of the family. Florida has a huge problem today with invasive species of cichlids which have been introduced to its waterways. Thanks Idaho! Closest ones I know of are in Blanco river. I know the ones I caught were "endangered"! LOL They were delish!
Last edited by kaywoodie; 03/29/20.
Founder
Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored."
WS
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Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 10,346
Campfire Outfitter
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OP
Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 10,346 |
You could excavate the pond and make it deeper. Did that a few years back and also deepened the 2 draws that feed into it. I am way too old to do any major excavation and to be able to enjoy what may happen. This is a local place that I plan on getting the Tilapia from. It will be a couple weeks before they will have them available. https://ufishtx.com/
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 25,926 Likes: 2
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 25,926 Likes: 2 |
We have a native cichlid here. The Rio Grande Perch. I’m sure they are endangered now. But they were sure good eating back in the day and fun on a fly rod. Not endangered at all. Known as "Texas Cichlid" in the aquarium trade, the fish is widely available to the hobbyist. It is the only Cichlid indigenous to USA, and is more tolerant of cooler water than most members of the family. Florida has a huge problem today with invasive species of cichlids which have been introduced to its waterways. Thanks Idaho! Closest ones I know of are in Blanco river. I know the ones I caught were "endangered"! LOL They were delish! I know that NO LA would like to give a bunch of them back to Texas. The Texas cichlid has become very problematic in may places as an invasive species. But that does nothing to indicate they are not becoming rare in their original home waters.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,857 Likes: 5
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,857 Likes: 5 |
You could excavate the pond and make it deeper. This is universally the best suggestion for most ponds. The fundamental reason is that most macrophytes grow from the bottom up, which means they need a minimum amount of sunlight to establish and grow towards the surface. Deepen the pond, less sunlight to the bottom, and less weeds. There are two other ways to accomplish the same thing (reduce sunlight). One is to increase the turbidity of the water. The easiest way to do that is to plant a fish that stirs up the bottom, putting silt into the water column, which reduces light transmission. You can do that by employing a bottom dweller, usually cyprinids or catfish. Catfish are not as good at stirring things up, but they don't overcrowd, and most people enjoy eating them. Carp, including gold fish, are better (they take mouthfulls of silt to recover the little critters they are fond of), but you have the risk of over crowding. ' For years, I sold a sterile hybrid carp (Common carp x Carraseus auratus), which did the job beautifully. I was just never able to convince people to pay to stock carp...... The other way to reduce sunlight and thus rooted macrophytes is by using one of the commercial UV blockers (aquaveil, black veil, blue veil, etc, etc,), which WILL do the job, pretty economically, as long as you don't have a lot of flow through. Add a cup or two every couple of weeks, and you have a pretty blue pond with no weeds.
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