Tilapia

[BillyD007]

Would stocking tilapia in my lake in south central Indiana be beneficial to Bass growth?

[00 mod]

It is in Mexican lakes.  But will they survive the winter?  And is it legal?

 

Jeff

[OkeechobeeAngler]

Also if not kepted under control they will over take it. My friend has a nice 3 acre pond that we used to catch some nice bass out of.

He stocked it with talapia and now there are a gazillion of them and hardly no bass.

I could be wrong on this but arent they a warm water fish ?

[RoLo]

Tilapia will definitely NOT survive in Indiana.

In fact, during cold spells in central Florida we get heavy tilapia diebacks.

They are not at all invasive, in fact, Florida lakes with strong tilapia populations

produce some of the heaviest bass in the state (bass love tilapia as much as alligators love bass).

 

Roger

[MCS]

Yeah I haven't seen talapia in ponds since I lived in Tampa bay. Too cold even in north florida to sustain a population.

[bighed]

We have them around Texas in some of the power plant lake and lake in the southern part of the state. State law requires we kill a tilapia as soon as its caught.

[SirSnookalot]

There is a community just up the street from my home, the residents have stocked this community pond with tilapia.  I have met a few people living there and have gotten reports of 10# bass caught not uncommon. 

[0119]

Tilapia will definitely NOT survive in Indiana.

In fact, during cold spells in central Florida we get heavy tilapia diebacks.

They are not at all invasive, in fact, Florida lakes with strong tilapia populations

produce some of the heaviest bass in the state (bass love tilapia as much as alligators love bass).

 

Roger

 

In my area of Fl. the tilapia have destroyed almost all the bass habitat.  The Blue Tilapia are aggressive towards bass and push them off all legitimate spawning areas even taking over bass beds.  They produce in such huge numbers, spawning up to 5 times a year, that the waters become chocolate milk with their foraging and especially their excrement.  The chemical content of the water changes, O2 levels go way down.  Most of my local waters haven't had any native panfish in a decade or more.  Even the freshwater snook and tarpon don't seem to target them.

[RoLo]

In my area of Fl. the tilapia have destroyed almost all the bass habitat.  The Blue Tilapia are aggressive towards bass and push them off all legitimate spawning areas even taking over bass beds.  They produce in such huge numbers, spawning up to 5 times a year, that the waters become chocolate milk with their foraging and especially their excrement.  The chemical content of the water changes, O2 levels go way down.  Most of my local waters haven't had any native panfish in a decade or more.  Even the freshwater snook and tarpon don't seem to target them.

 

There's a lake in Florida, which shall remain nameless with a very heavy population of tilapia.

As a direct result, this same lake boasts an unusually high population of pig bass.

A couple years back, Florida experienced an unprecedented cold winter. That same year the unsustainable range

of peacock bass was pushed back down to where it belongs and the snook population was pruned back hard.

That year same year, I observed many dead tilapia along the banks of this lake, which struck terror in my heart.

Happily, the tilapia have made a strong comeback since then, where outsized bass still abound.   

 

Conventional wisdom generally buys into the notion that every competitive species is automatically detrimental

to their pet species (whatever that species may be). Well, they were wrong about killer bees (still waiting to see my 1st),

they were wrong in the 70s about lamprey eels and they were wrong in the 2000s about the detriment of the round goby

which actually turned out to be a boon to walleye and smallmouth bass. More often than not, history has shown

that a species will benefit in the long run from competition. The twists & turns in ecology are highly complex

and as difficult to predict as the weather, and we all know the batting average in that ballpark.  

 

That said, if you have access to any study corroborating tilapia's influence on dissolved oxygen,

I'd be very interested in the URL. That doesn't mean we'll automagically buy into it, but it'll give us the opportunity to poke holes in it.  

 

Roger

[0119]

Just the study of fishing the same waters for the last 40+ years and watching its steady decline. All be it from many factors but seeing its cliff dive plummet since the tilapia over populated.  I don't really take to scientific studies as I distrust academia more than I distrust government.  I'm sure they provide a forage base of sorts, even though many years of using them as live bait, I nor anyone I know has ever caught an impressive Bass, Snook or Tarpon on one.  But please understand, I don't know the waters you fish or their condition.  Here, the a single tilapia school can literally cover two acres of the surface as they skim for plankton in the dawn.  Its normal to pass through dozens of these schools as you travel in search of better locations.  Most range from 3-5 lbs. and are not forage to any predator.  And all the Snook, Tarpon, Jack and Bass combined don't make a dent into the off spring these huge fish produce each year.  I've watched bass spawning grounds destroyed by the tilapias deep pits and they control the grounds through several spawns a year.  Native submergent vegetation is long gone except the scads of 'angel hair' that thrives in the now excrement rich water.  Once clear tannic waters are now grayish chocolate milk as 'herds' of grazing tilapia mull over the bottom muck like herds of sheep laying waste to old west cattle grounds.  Too big to be eaten, even of disinterest to Osprey's, cant be caught with regularity by bait fishermen or fly anglers.  All our bow fishing and cast netting doesn't put a dent into the population.

 

I'm glad you haven't had to deal with African-ized Bee's.  They have made their way here, killing one person just a few months ago.   Elderly lady in a local nursing home was killed in her bed, bitten to death by red ants a few years back.  Non native coyotes have killed area horses and calves too.  Mostly I see the Nile Monitors and Iguana's.  It gets nasty when Iguana's travel down sewer vent pipes and live in homes when 'snowbirds' are living the good life back up home.

[Bass Menace]

In our local fisheries we have the Mozambique and redbreast Tilapia as well as a few smaller Cichlid species. 

 

Here we have the opposite problem to you in the U.S.A. Bass are aliens and Tilapia are indigenous. Many argue that bass have cause a massive decline in the Tilapia population as well as indigenous minnow and Labeobarbus species. This time of year there are large schools of Tilapia fingerlings and the bass absolutely hammer them. Normally they spawn a few weeks after the bass and the young bass have lots of food after the adult Tilapia abandon the youngsters.  Bluegill have also been blamed for the declining Tilapia numbers.

 

There have been some cases in small ponds and farm dams where the bass have annihilated the Tilapia with only the larger old specimens remaining. The bass soon overpopulate the dam and that's the end of that without proper culling.