Food-grade blue tilapia can reach a pound in as little as 240 days if they are kept in the best conditions and only get air from the surface. If you breed your own tilapia, you can add another couple of weeks for egg incubation. Alternatively, if you buy your fingerlings from Lakeway Tilapia, you can take 46 days off the grow-out period. That’s how old the fingerlings we ship to our customers are on average. It takes the exact nutrition in Purina AquaMax to get there, which is why we say “as little as 240 days.” Now before you let your inner cynic out, this isnt a sales pitch for AquaMax. In fact, if there was an alternative that gave us better results, we would use it. But there just isnt.
We offer Purina AquaMax as a service to our customers and do not make any money from selling it. If you read our page about tilapia food for sale and then call your local feed store to confirm our prices, you will see that we are telling the truth. What’s the big deal about AquaMax? All other tilapia diets are measured against it. Its also the food of choice for scientific studies. In a recent paper published in the Journal of Applied Aquaculture, Auburn University talked about how they used AquaMax to study tilapia growth. But most importantly, AquaMax is the fuel that drives the incredibly fast growth of our tilapia. It saves us money, and keeps our harvest profitable.
Tilapia are one of the most popular fish for stocking backyard ponds and aquaculture operations. They grow quickly, tolerate a wide range of water conditions, and can reproduce easily. But what do these fish eat? Understanding tilapia diet and nutrition is key for keeping them healthy and growing.
An Overview of Tilapia Diet in the Wild
Tilapia are omnivorous fish that eat both plant and animal matter in the wild Their natural diet consists of
- Algae
- Aquatic plants and vegetation
- Insects
- Crustaceans
- Plankton
- Detritus
- Bacteria
They are opportunistic feeders and will eat almost anything organic they can fit in their mouths Tilapia use their fine teeth to grind up plant matter and scrape algae off surfaces
Wild tilapia mostly feed on phytoplankton and periphyton – surface algae coating submerged plants and debris. But they also consume a considerable amount of zooplankton, benthic organisms, and aquatic insect larvae.
Their flexible diet allows tilapia to thrive in freshwater habitats across the world. They can populate and grow quickly in newly formed water bodies because they eat whatever organic matter is available
Commercial Tilapia Diets and Feeds
In aquaculture operations, tilapia are fed high protein commercial feeds to maximize growth rates. Common ingredients in tilapia feed include:
- Fish meal
- Soybean meal
- Corn meal
- Rice bran
- Vitamin and mineral mixes
Feed is usually formulated into sinking pellet feeds. This allows easy automated feeding and prevents waste. Floating feeds are also used in some setups.
The exact nutritional composition varies between feeds. But most contain 25-40% protein and 3-6% lipid. Digestibility and nutrient balance is carefully optimized as well.
Besides basic nutrition, some specialty feeds have additives like:
- Pigments to enhance color
- Immune boosters
- Probiotics for better gut health
Feed is adjusted based on the tilapia’s life stage and desired growth targets. Faster growing juvenile fish are fed feeds with 28-32% protein. Broodstock may be conditioned on higher 36-40% protein diets.
Commercial tilapia farms feed 2-5% of their total biomass daily. Feeding is usually split into several smaller meals throughout the day. Automated feeders are commonly used to deliver feeds efficiently and consistently.
Feeding Tilapia in Backyard Ponds
For hobbyists and backyard pond owners, commercially manufactured tilapia feed may be unavailable or too expensive. There are several DIY approaches to feed tilapia without specialized feeds:
Vegetable Scraps
Chopped vegetable scraps are an easy kitchen leftover to use. Tilapia will eagerly eat bits of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, peas, and more. Blanching tougher veggies like broccoli stems can make them easier to eat.
Fruits/Berries
Chopped or mashed fruits are another good DIY tilapia feed. Melons, bananas, berries, citrus, apples, and mangoes are all accepted. Some fruits are more efficiently consumed than others.
Leafy Greens
Leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, and herbs can be fed fresh or dried. Dried seaweed sheets are also greedily eaten.
Grains/Legumes
Cooked grains like rice, barley, oats, quinoa and legumes like chickpeas and lentils are taken readily. Some tilapia will even eat dry flakes or pellets.
Aquatic Plants
Aquatic plants like duckweed, azolla, and water hyacinth make excellent tilapia feed as they grow naturally on the water’s surface. Just avoid invasive species spreading out of control.
Algae Based Feed
Algae and yeast based fish feeds can be purchased or homemade. These provide complete nutrition without fish meal. Homemade recipes combine algae powder, grains, vitamin mix, and a binder.
Live Foods
Small live organisms are natural tilapia prey. Daphnia, blackworms, brine shrimp, and insect larvae can encourage feeding activity. But they do not provide full nutrition alone.
Limitations of DIY Diets
While DIY feeds save money, they have some downsides:
- Difficult to ensure complete, balanced nutrition
- Inconsistent availability
- Time consuming prep and feeding
- Hard to track and adjust amounts
- Can foul water as excess decays
- Growth rates may be lower
For best results, DIY feeds are usually combined with a basic pelleted feed. This ensures the tilapia’s nutritional needs are fully met. Working out the proper proportions takes some trial and error.
Feeding Fry and Juvenile Tilapia
Young tilapia fry and fingerlings have different dietary needs than mature fish. Meeting these helps the fish develop properly and transition to adult feeds.
Tilapia Fry Feeding
For the first 2-3 weeks after hatching, tilapia fry absorb nutrients from their yolk sac. They do not need to actively feed during this time.
After their yolk is fully absorbed, the fry become free swimming and must start feeding. At this point they are under 0.2 inches long.
Newly swimming fry eat infusoria – microorganisms that grow naturally in the water. But they can be supplemented with specialty fry powders and crumbles. After 5-7 days, fry are ready for finely crushed flake foods and micropellets.
Juvenile Tilapia Feeding
Once tilapia reach 0.5 inches long, they are considered juveniles or fingerlings. At this stage, their diet can be transitioned to:
- Finely crumbled pellets
- Crushed flakes
- Chopped earthworms
- Daphnia
- Mashed pellets soaked in water
Juveniles should be fed small, frequent meals around 5% of their body weight per day. This helps support their rapid growth at this stage.
Within 2-3 weeks, fingerlings can generally eat standard 1-3mm sinking pellets. But they should still be fed several smaller portions daily.
Key Tips For Feeding Tilapia
- Offer a well-balanced diet according to life stage
- Adjust feeding rates based on fish density and water temperature
- Feed smaller portions several times a day rather than one large meal
- Use sinking pellet feed to prevent waste from uneaten food
- Soak dry feeds in water before feeding for better digestibility
- Avoid overfeeding as excess will foul the water as it decays
- Feed a consistent diet at regular intervals for best growth
What tilapia eat greatly impacts their health and growth. Understanding their nutritional needs and properly feeding them is key for success. With good tilapia husbandry, these fish can reach harvest size quickly and efficiently in backyard ponds or large commercial operations.
Trust in Purina – For over 100 years
Why are there different brands of tilapia food anyway? The other brands aren’t that much less expensive. They certainly arent better for your fish. Its like everything else on the Internet these days. Take the so-called “Premium Fish Food” company. They didnt even exist online before 2010, thats a matter of public record. But what’s really scary is that their website copyright claims the start date as 2004, which is six years before they even thought of their domain name. If you can’t trust them to be honest about the little things, what can you trust them with? The truth is that the Internet is full of people selling garbage who are very good at marketing.
Purina has been trusted for generations. Their company is strong, and they invest millions in perfecting their formulas. They dont need hype and creative search engine optimization. As feed experts, they know how to make the best omega-3 eggs, the tastiest chickens, and almost every turkey at Thanksgiving. And if thats not enough, AquaMax is trusted by over 90 percent of American aquatic growers.
There are three feeding charts presented below. These are only applicable to pure strain food grade Blue tilapia and pure strain food grade Nile tilapia. They show the exact amount to feed for each day of the grow out period. To feed your tilapia the right amount each day, all you have to do is figure out how much 100 of them weigh. Then you just follow along with each subsequent day until you reach one pound. You only have to weigh your tilapia once, because the next days weight is already calculated. This is why you use AquaMax. The growth at any given size is predictable by the amount fed the previous day!.
You will need to figure out the difference between 100 fingerlings and any other number you have. Luckily, 100 is an easy number to multiply and divide. Just make sure that you meet all of the requirements at the top of each chart. Read our tilapia farming guide if you need more information on full surface aeration.
You can buy Purina AquaMax here.
The feeding charts below will take 194 days to complete. If you feed a little more at the start of each chart and then lessen the amount until the weights at the end match, you can cut the total time down to 180 days or even less. It takes practice and close attention to the water quality, but it might be worth it to meet a certain harvest date. If you decide to speed up the feeding schedules in this way, make sure to switch to the next food when the tilapia reach the end weight on each schedule. For example: You can start the first chart by feeding an extra 9. The first day, give your fish 45 grams of food. Each day after that, cut the extra amount by half a gram until each fish weighs 28 grams. You can start the second chart by feeding an extra 28. 4 grams then taper off by 1. 2 grams per day until your fish weigh 57 grams each.
How AquaMax was developed
Most tilapia food is born out of a need to do something with farming trash. The manufacturers literally look at what they can get for little or nothing, then move forward from there. They use waste from farms that grow soy, wheat, and corn, along with binders, oils, powders, and sometimes dirt, clay, or even rock dust, to make their goods. They are counting on the fact that you don’t know about things like digestibility, caloric intake, and what fish waste is made of.
Purina AquaMax was made backwards, starting with what the tilapia needed and then working forwards to find the exact mix of ingredients it needed. Sure, Purina recycles farming by-products, but only in the proportions necessary for optimal nutrition. Because tilapia’s nutritional needs change as they get bigger, AquaMax comes in eight different formulas, each one made to help them grow the most at every stage. Take the typical 3/16 pellet for example. Other companies focus on making foods that are high in protein and fat, but Purina worked with university researchers to make a formula that is lower in protein and has only 6% fat. This is because Purina knows that bigger fish don’t need to store fat because they can get the energy and building blocks they need to grow from other foods.
When we talk about the 3/16-inch pellet, some new tilapia food companies say it’s a good “intermediate” food for young tilapia that are about four inches long. This claim highlights their ignorance to fish farming practices in general. The 3/16 inch pellet is used as a grow out food for all tilapia sizes over 2 ounces. The 3/16-inch size is meant to help control food sources in ponds with a lot of fish, so the harvest is more evenly spread out.