‘No loss in Tilapia farming’

Why is it that many farmers in Nigeria don’t go into tilapia farming?This is a subject that I have been yearning to talk about because some people are going into catfish and recording losses as a result of one or two reasons, while others are having a lot of challenges and they don’t know where […]

Why is it that many farmers in Nigeria don’t go into tilapia farming?
This is a subject that I have been yearning to talk about because some people are going into catfish and recording losses as a result of one or two reasons, while others are having a lot of challenges and they don’t know where to go. Tilapia are very good species of fish that is cost effective. It has no issues of cannibalism-the number you put in a pond, is the number you get if they are the modified type, or you get more than what you stock if it is the reproducing type. Why many farmers don’t go into tilapia farming is because they don’t know where to source for the fingerlings. They don’t have the source-and if they can get the source, they will go into tilapia because it is very effective.
You are a well-known catfish breeder and fish consultant in Abuja and its environs, are you also into tilapia production?
Yes, we are into tilapia production. We have procured a number of oxygen bags that will be used in transporting the fingerlings to any farm.
You mean any farm here in Abuja or all the states of the federation?
We can supply all over the nation. Anywhere you ask for tilapia, we can give you even genetically modified tilapia that is fast growing, very effective, that can grow up to 700 grammes.
In terms of feeding, how easy or difficult is it to manage tilapia compared to catfish?
Tilapia is the easiest of all fish species because tilapia can survive with minimal amount of feeds, it is herbivorous. It can feed on plants, algae and so on in the ponds. It can even feed on mud. Tilapia is very effective because the cost of feeding tilapia is about 30% less than the cost of feeding catfish. The amount of feed the tilapia takes to grow in 30 days is 30% less than what catfish takes. Again, one good thing about tilapia farming is that there are no losses in tilapia farming. They feed less and give good results.
I am aware that some species of tilapia get multiplied if you stock them in a pond. Can you shed more light about that?
Yes we have some species that are like that and those species are our local species in Nigeria. I believe some of them were taken to Asia and modified. We also have some species in our farm that we are modifying. With what we have now if you take tilapia from a river into a pond, they multiply rapidly. But the growth rate is not there-they remain small. But the ones we produce in the hatchery, we modify their genetics so that they will be all male, have faster growth rate and even the female that will be there will not produce eggs. We have others that we produce that will not grow as fast as the genetically modified ones but they can multiply themselves in a pond.
Let’s talk about the ones that multiply. If you stock, say 300 in a pond, how many are you likely to get?
If you stock 300 tilapia in a 50 by 100 metres pond-which is a very large pond, within two to four months, those numbers will multiply up to four or five times the number you stocked, if they are the producing type. But the rate of survival in that earthen pond will depend on how water is coming in and going out. Within a year, you will not have space in that pond because tilapias reproduce very fast-but the growth rate is small. The ones we are modifying don’t reproduce but grow bigger.