Red Tilapia in Saline Water (28ppt)

Red Tilapia (Florida Strain) was stocked in Real, Quezon (BMD FARM) in late April 2012. At first I thought this species will never survive since it's basic nature is from Freshwater (0ppt). We were instructed to acclimatize before we stock.

Then came the day of judgement for these cute baby red tilapia. As an aquaculturist, I was expecting 50% mortality from the batch. Fortunately, only about 30% died during the 5-day acclimatization process. From 30,000 fingerlings, it went down to 20,000. We cultured the fish for about 5months using Tateh sinker feeds. I knew that it should be fed with sinker pellet actually. But the Agency handling the project provides what is available from their stock. So we have no choice. In the end, as expected, the FCR (feed conversion ratio) went up to 2.30. It's awful yet we harvested 500kgs.

This is our first time to produce red tilapia. And so we have no idea where or how to sell this fish. As an advice to some who want to grow red tilapia..Please try to extend the size up to 500grams. In our case, we harvested at about 300grams, that we thought it's already enough to create a demand. But we failed. We end up slicing the fish from the middle and dry them under the sun. We found out from "Malabon" and other consignation areas that the demand is 500grmas and above fish for the red tilapia. So there goes the dried red tilapia....