Last night my wife and I transferred half of our blue tilapia fry out to the greenhouse. This sampling is rough estimates no exact counts were done other than the total number of fish transferred. This amount was from one 5-6 inch female brood fish.
As I said roughly half were transferred and the total count was 284. So that puts her total spawn somewhere between 500 and 700 fry. I will update an accurate count when I transfer the other 50%. These fry were 30 days old last night when we transferred them. I am excellent with measurements without a ruler. Carpenter. Percentages are a rough estimate based on my wife and my estimates. I know this is not very scientific, but it is darn close.
20% of fry were +/- 2.25 inches
60% of fry were +/- 1.5 inches
20% of fry were +/- 1 inch
I will update from time to time as growth progresses. Thought some of you might be interested. I am very happy with the results considering the current conditions. No auto feeder. These fry only got fed in the morning, then several times in the evenings, and multiple times during the day on the weekends. They were kept for the first 20 days in a 75 gallon aquarium, then separated into two 75 gallon aquariums for the next 10 days. Needless to say by day 30 they were getting rather cramped (IMO) Feed was Purina Aquamax.
I fully cycled the greenhouse tanks, and if no water quality issues present themselves in the next three days the remainder of the fry will be transferred, I don't anticipate any. I need the space because I have plenty of females holding eggs right now.
I know that Blues are not known to be the easiest of the Oreochromis species (I have no experience with others), but I honestly can't imagine them being any easier. I have a modest total poundage of +/-75 pounds around the farm right now. I had 25 pounds delivered in the spring, though he gave me 32 pounds. By best calculations I have tripled my weight in three months. Most were 4 inch fish, and the bulk were stocked in my 1/4 acre pond. The average fish we are catching now out of the pond by rod and reel are now 8- 10 inches long. Males being on the larger end, and females on the smaller.These fish are going into a 700 gallon clean out tank, and are slowly being consumed by my family. As temps start to cool, we will seine the pond, and retrieve as many as possible before winter kill.
In grow out tanks I have false bottoms made of 1/2 inch hardware cloth to prevent egg gathering by the females, which really helps in reducing the male/ female size differential. Though males till grow larger.
Oh, a little tidbit of info in case any of you guys stock tilapia in ponds, and want to catch them by angling. Stubby Steves pellet lures! http://www.stubbysteve.com/ These little pellets mimic fish pellets, and work great for catching any feed conditioned fish. They were highly recommended to me, and I bought a few. They work great. Tilapia are not much for the fight the first 10 seconds is impressive, then they just roll over and drag in.