Tilapia, breeding criteria

1. Tilapia Breeding
VALA FORAM D.

2. Introduction
• fish production and consumption plays important role in
achieving one of the Millennium Development
• Goals—that of eradicating hunger and reducing the
incidence of malnutrition.
• Tilapias have the potential of becoming the most important
aquaculture species in the world.
• Tilapia has been a more affordable source of protein than
pork, chicken, and other sources of animal protein.
• In 2010, the world production of farmed tilapias reached
3.2 million metric tons of which about 35% was produced in
China (Fitzsimmons et al., 2011).

3. • TILAPIA Originally native of Africa but distributed all over the world.
• Oreochromis niloticus (Nile Tilapia) Aquatic chicken
• Most favoured species for culture, originally found in Nile valley, upto
Central and Western Africa.
• Easy growing fish , reproduces prolifically under natural conditions.
• Remarkable ability to adapt to different climatic regions of the world-
salinities, foods and ecosystems.
• Highly disease resistant.
• Good growth rate and feed conversion efficiency.
• GLOBAL AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION OF NILE TILAPIA (FAO) China first
in the production.

6. • Sexual Dimorphism- sexes separate
• Male - Two apertures on ventral side of
belly:- Anus and urinogenital
• •Urinogenital aperture smaller
• Female - Three apertures- anus, urinary
And genital aperture
• •Bigger Urinogenital aperture
• Age at first maturity -10 -17 cm length
and 4-5 months
• Courtship behaviour
• Males show active display in their
breeding territory called lek,
• Nests are prepared by scooping out
depressions at pond bottom.
• Mature female Visits the pond and
there is immediate courtship and
mating.

7. Parental care:
• Tilapia niloticus is a maternal mouth brooder.
• Incubation period varies from 4-10 days depending on
temperature.
• At 20 Deg C - - 6days
• At 28 Deg C – 4 days
• At 30 Deg C- only 3 days.
• After hatching, larvae takes 4 to 6 days for yolk sac
absorption.
• When fully absorbed , the larvae leave the mouth of the
mother.- swimup fry- start feeding.
• Mother continues to shelter the larvae for 1-4 days more.
• Larvae takes 10-12 days to become fully independent.
• Mother does not feed during incubation but starts feeding
vigorously when the period is over

9. Species:-
• Other Species of Tilapia
• Oreochromis aureus, Oreochromis mossambicus (Java Tilapia), Oreochromis
spilurus niger, O.urolepis hornorum, O. macrochir, Sarotherodon galileus, S.
melanotheron ,Tilapia rendalli , T. zilli.
• Problems in aquaculture of Tilapia
• Uncontrolled reproduction causes overpopulation
• stunted growth, and uneconomic returns.
• Collection of naturally produced fry – not sustainable
• cannibalism among the fry, older and larger consume the weaker fry.
• Asynchronous breeding habit.
• Overcrowding, stunted growth and decline in reproductive efficiency.
• decline in frequency of spawning and reduced fecundity

10. Important requirements and
Characteristics
Mature tilapia
• 4 to 6 months
• WEIGHT : 5 to 100 grams
• LENGTH : 10 to 12 cm
• SPAWNING TEMPERATURE
• OPTIMUM 25 to 30⁰C
• MINIMUM 21⁰C
• EGG PRODUCTION PER FEMALE
• 100 g female tilapia – 100 eggs per spawning
• 100-600 g female tilapia – 1000 to 1500 eggs per
• spawning.
• BEST SIZE FOR BROODSTOCK
• 100 to 200 g

11. Cont..
• Spawning Process
• The following sequence characterizes the mating behavior of
• Tilapia.
• 1. Brood stock become acclimated to their surroundings 3 to 4
• days after stocking.
• 2. Males define and defend territories on the bottom, and form a
• nest by cleaning a circular area 20 to 30 cm. Wide. In ponds with
• soft bottoms, the nest excavated 5 to 8 cm deep by digging with
• the mouth.
• 3. The female is attracted to the nest where the male courts her.
• 4. A mating pair of Tilapia

12. Cont..
• 5. The female lays her eggs in the nest after which
• they are fertilized by the male.
• 6. The female picks up the fertilized eggs in her mouth
• and leaves the nest. The male continues to guard the
• nest and attract other females for mating. Courtship
• and mating require less than a day.
• 7. Eggs are incubated for 2 to 5 days in the female’s
• mouth before they hatch. Young fry stay with their
• mother for an additional 5 to 7 days. They hide in her
• mouth when danger threatens. The female does not
• eat while incubating her eggs or caring for the new fry

13. • 8. A female guards her young for 5 to 7 days. They
• hide in her mouth when danger threatens.
• 9. The female will be ready to mate again about one
• week after she stops caring for the fry.
• 10. Fry from schools after leaving their mother and
• can be easily harvested with small mesh nest at this
• time. Large schools of fry may be seen 13 to 18 days
• after broodstock have been introduced to their new
• surroundings.

14. • Tilapias Fingerling Production:
• For the purposes of farming tilapia there are
• two sources from which tilapia fingerlings
• are obtained: collection from the wild and by
• breeding in nurseries established in
• countries where tilapia is farmed. Countries
• which do not have either of these sources
• they import their requirements from countries
• that has them.

15. Advanced techniques for bood stock
management
• Advanced techniques for brood stock management
• Conditioning brood fish before spawning
• a. Stocking the brood fish at optimum stocking density
• b. Providing the brood fish with good quality feed.
• c. O. mossambicus is reported to feed upto 40% of their body weight
• d. immediately after release of fry from its mouth.
• Collecting the larvae from the mouth of the brood fish
• a. Water level is lowered to 20-30 cm depth.
• b. Females are examined for presence of larvae
• c. Eggs are collected from the mouth into a basin.
• d. Eggs are taken for artificial incubation
• e. Spawned females are replaced by ready to spawn females once in 10 days

16. • Artificial incubation of eggs
• Incubation device is a round bottom container (20 litre) with
inlet pipe at the centre and an outlet pipe at the side
• Can hold about 80000 eggs for incubation.
• Outlet water is allowed to flow into a fry tray – collection of any
hatchling that are carried out thru the overflowing water.
• Water from the fry tray is allowed to flow into a filtration unit
by gravity. The unit – prefilter, slow sand filter and UV steriliser.
• Water is allowed to flow into a sump or reservoir
• From sump water is pumped into an overhead tank from where
the outlet pipe is connected to the incubation vessel.

17. • Larval care in Tilapia culture
• •Newly hatched larvae are delicate and reared in trays in a flow through
system (Yolk sac absorption tray)
• Rearing continues for upto 20 days after hatching
• Tray made of Al or plastic 40X 25 X 8 cm or 40 X 30 X 10 cm with holes
on lateral sides
• •Fine meshed plastic or nylon net is fixed inside the tray, prevents the
escape of the hatchlings when water flows through the tray
• A 3 cm water depth is maintained in the tray
• Faster the flow rate, the lesser time it takes for yolksac abspn.
• Fry after yolksac abspn – called swim fry start feeding,
• fed 4-8 times/day

18. Tilapia culture
• Tilapia can be cultured as:
• 1. Mixed sexes - males
• and females together
• 2. Mono-sex - only males

19. Cont..
• Tilapia farmers choose to raise male tilapia only
since they have a higher growth rate compared to
females
• Better growth rate, greater body depth and width
• Purity of parental stock has to be ascertained for
producing single sex offsprings.

20. Mixed-sex culture
• Advantages:
• 1. Technically easy
• Disadvantages:
• 1. Small harvest weight
• 2. Mixed sizes at harvest

21. Mono-sex culture
• Advantages:
• 1. Large harvest weight
• 2. Uniform size at harvest
• Disadvantages:
• 1. Technically difficult

22. • Mono-sex male tilapia populations can be
produced by:
• 1. Manual sexing
• 2. Hybridization
• 3. Sex-reversal
• 4. Genetic manipulation

23. Manual sexing
• Manually sexing tilapia is different but not
impossible. It is however very labour intensive and
therefore costly.
• When a tilapia fingerlings has reached a weight of
25gm it can normally be differentiate by looking at
the genital papilla.
• The genital papilla has one single opening in a male
tilapia
• Genital papilla having a two opening in female
tilapia

24. Hybridization:-
• It is a act of breeding between two different
species/genera, which ordinary are not
Interbreeding.
• Ex:-
Nile tilapia × blue tilapia(o. Niloticus × o. Aureus)
• Superior growth of male.
• Fertile hybrid.
• Increased cold and salinity tolerance.

25. O. Niloticus × o. Hornorum
• Male offspring.
O. Niloticus × o. Macrochir
• Male offspring, but strain of nile tilapia is important
for good fry production.
O.mossambicus × o. Hornorum
• Male offspring.
• Fertile hybrids.
• Slow growth and dark colors.
 O. Mossambicus × o. Niloticus
• Red tilapia with salinity tolerance.
• Progeny of these give range of colours.
• Known asas Taiwan red tilapia.

27. Hormone treatment:-
• Direct approach: monosex population produce
directly by hormone treatment.
• Indirect approach: monosex population can be
obtained in two steps.
1. A bloodstock population is established by sex
reversal.
2. Then these sex reversed individual should be
bred to produce monosex population.

28. Methods of hormone treatment
• Dietary supplementation:- the hormone mixed feed
is the most widely used and the easiest method for
achieving sex reversals.
• Immersion technique:- juvenile fishes are
immersed in hormone treated water.
• Injection:- injection requires less amount of
hormone to cause sex reversal. It is very much
laborious and expansive.

29. Steroid hormone
Androgens:- 17-a-methyl testosteron
Testosterone
11- keto testosterone
Estrogens:- Estradiol-17-B
Estrone

30. • Doses of 17a-MT - 40,60 and 80 mg of 17a-
MT/kg of feed ( From the 7th to the 28th day
posthatching to produce all male tilapia population)
• After 15, 35 , 75 and 1 year of treatment- growth
parameters, survival rate, sex ratio and gonad
histology.
• The maximum sex ratio of males (95% and 97%)
were recorded at 60 mg of 17a-MT/kg of diet after
75 day's and 1 yr of treatment.

31. Genetic manipulation
• Genetic manipulation- divided into three
categories
1. Marker-assisted selection (MAS).
2. Gross breading.
3. Genetic modification.

32. WHAT IS ‘GIFT’ TILAPIA
• Genetically improved farmed Tilapia (GIFT Tilapia)
• GIFT tilapia was developed by scientists at world
fish center through selective breeding of several
strains of Nile tilapia.
• GIFT strains of Nile tilapia grows quickly and
survives well, dramatically increasing aquaculture
yield.

33. Gift tilapia
• A collaborative research project named as GIFT
was started in April, 1988.
• After 5 generations of selection, the growth
performance of GIFT strains improved by more
than 80% compared with base population.

34. OBJECTIVES OF GIFT PROJECT
• Development of improved breeds of Nile tilapia
• To disseminate GIFT
• To carry out genetic, socioeconomic and
environmental evaluation of GIFT (in ponds 15% &
in cages 7%)
• To facilitate the development of national tilapia
programs.

35. ADVANTAGES OF GIFT
• Faster growth rate than other strains.
• Improved survival.
• Three fish crops per year.
• It is mainly plant eating.
• The GIFT strain has generated additional income
and employment for both fish formers and hatchery
operators.

36. • Improved survival in polluted waters and
• that they can be raised in extensive
• systems without the need for commercial
• feeds.
• The benefit of three fish crops per year,
• raises the yield potential and income
• generation from the smallest of ponds.
• GIFT consumes rice bran to weeds and even
sewage
• but it is mainly plant-eating.

38. Conclusion
• • Diversification of species in aquaculture by
• including more species is becomes necessary.
• • Introduction of tilapia in our culture systems is
• advantageous because it represents lower level in
• food chain, and thus its culture will be economical
• and eco-friendly.
• • GIFT was developed through traditional selective
• breeding techniques.
• • GIFT strain grows faster than local tilapia strains.

39. • In south-east Asian Countries, Its farming has
brought prosperity to the farmers besides
augmenting production for domestic
consumption as well as exports.
• GIFT has become popular in neighbouring
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with no reported
adverse Impacts.
• •The introduction of genetically improved
tilapia such as GIFT is worth considering