Species: T Mossambica Orange: T Mossambica Orange

T Mossambica Orange The color of orange in the Orange mossambica comes from two distinctly different sources. The orange is somatic and occurs as pigmentation througout the dermal layer and while breeding for it appears to bring out more and more orange, it is apparent that it is the reduction of black chromatophores that allows the orange to become more apparent. Those areas of the fish which respond to hormones such as the fronz of the head and the tip of the spines show the most darkening when the sexual stimulation or dominance is present and so pregnant females ready to lay eggs or who has already laid them or has fry that have left her mouth to feed on or near the bottom. This darkening of the chromatophores in response to the sexual chemicals gives her a fierce appearance as she defends the area of the pond or tank where her fry are swimming. A mother tilapia with these markings on her head will attack any fish or other creature that happens to swim near the area they occupy. It is pure speculation as to whether the darkening is presented as a way of making her more fierce when defending her territory The chromatophores which darken by moving already made melanon into them are also very common in the Red Red and Red Butterball tilapia, but in the case of the Red tilapia which show a lot of red the chemical moved into the chromatophore is red instead of black and is most probably a precurser to melanin The red tilapias like the black tilapias are able to move the dark colored chemicals into their chromatophores in response to darkening in the tank or landscape where they are kept so that if you want your fish to be very light or whiteish you can keep them in a white bucket, box or container for 30 to 40 minutes and they will lighten up considerabley. If you want them to try to match a dark color which means turning black if they have melanon in their skin or darker red if they have the red pigment in their skin. Much of the selection that I have done over the years is to first select in the red fish for a lack of melanin in their skin and then to select from the remaining fish the darkest and best distributed red pigmentation showing.

 

Species: Up Close Look: Fish 10 - 16

Fish 10 - 16 Fish 10 Fish 11 Fish 12 Fish 13 Fish 14 Fish 15 Fish 16

 

Species: Tilapia Hornorum: Tilapia Hornorum

Tilapia Hornorum hornorum female honorum male The tilapia hornorum pure gene line containing the improved fillet gene assembly is so far along in its selection program, it provides an improvement in fillet yield for each f-1 hybrid that it is used to produce. The hybrid name "knight" for the t. hornorum side was chosen because when in breeding, the hornorum male is very black, like the night and very brave like the knight. All of the pure f-1 hybrids created with this pure gene line have been excellent growers and very hardy and highly salt tolerant.

 

Species: Growth Rate Info: Growth Rate Information

Growth Rate Information The following Charts will answer most of your questions about tilapia fingerlings and how they grow. Lets suppose you put the following groups of 1,000 fish, 10 grams average for each tilapia fingerling, in a series of ponds of 1/10 Hectare each or cages 3 meters. x 2 meters by 1.5 meters in depth in at least a one hectare pond. You then feed them twice a day with a 32% Protein feed for 110 days at an average temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit and then harvest the resulting fish. 1. In pond or cage number One you put 1,000 Chocolate Hybrids* 2. In pond or cage number Two you put 1,000 Pennyfish* 3. In pond or cage number Three you put 1,000 Red Knight Hybrids* 4. In pond or cage number Four you put 1,000 red tilapias from where-ever. 5. In pond or cage number Five you put GMT yy male fingerlings 6. In pond or cage number Six you put sex reversed t. nilotica fingerlings You would be able to harvest according to the following schedule: In one hundred and ten days; Pond or cage One with the Pennyfish* in 110 days you could harvest 1,000 Pennyfish* (six hundred gram) whole fish or a total of 600 kilograms, restock it and do the same 3 times in a year for a total yearly production of 1,800 kilograms or 3960 pounds per year. You would realize up to 42% skinless boneless fillets which is 1,663 pounds of skinless boneless fillets per year. The parent stock breeders for the Pennyfish* is obtained from Tilapia Aquaculture International. Pond or cage Two with the Chocolate Hybrids* in 110 days you could harvest 1,000 (one thousand gram fish) which is 1,000,000 grams or 1,000 kilograms of whole fish and you could restock the pond three times a year and harvest 3,000 kilograms of whole fish. With a 44% yield you would have 1,320 kilograms of skinless boneless fillets per year per pond or cage. The parent stock breeders for the Chocolate Hybrid* is obtained from Tilapia Aquaculture International. Pond or cage Three with the Red Knight Hybrids* in 110 days you could harvest 1,000 (550 gram fish) which is 555,000 grams or 555 kilograms of whole fish and you could restock the pond three times a year and harvest 1,650 kilograms of whole fish per year. With a 40% yield you would have 660 kilograms of skinless boneless fillets per year per pond or cage. The parent stock breeders for the Red Knight* is obtained from Tilapia Aquaculture International. Pond or cage Four with the red tilapias from where-ever in 110 days you could harvest 1,000 (175 gram fish) which is 175000 grams or 175 kilograms of whole fish and you could restock the pond three times a year and harvest 525 kilograms of whole fish per year. With a 32% yield you would have 168 kilograms of skinless boneless fillets per year per pond or cage. These red tilapias are the ones sold in Israel, Jamaica and in Florida and Georgia. Pond or cage Five with the GMT tilapias in 110 days you could harvest 1,000 (200 gram fish) which is 200,000 grams or 200 kilograms of whole fish and you could restock the pond three times a year and harvest 600 kilograms of whole fish per year. With a 32% yield you would have 192 kilograms of skinless boneless fillets per year per pond or cage. These tilapias can be obtained from the GIFT group. Pond or cage Six with the sex reversed male tilapia nilotica in 110 days you could harvest 1,000 (180 gram fish) which is 180,000 grams or 180 kilograms of whole fish and you could restock the pond three times a year and harvest 540 kilograms of whole fish per year. With a 32% yield you would have 172.8 kilograms of skinless boneless fillets per year per pond or cage. These fingerlings can be obtained from a number of growers almost anywhere. Now to make the comparison Easier lets look at the actual yearly yield in whole fish and then in pounds of skinless boneless fillet per year with the same investment per pond or cage in feed**, time, and space. We are also ignoring cost of production of fingerlings and mortality, which are best in the three varieties of tilapias we supply. All test were conducted with normal aeration. (without pure oxygen)   Kg Yield per year % fillet kilos/FIL/yr fil    $7/kilo Chocolate Hy* Pennyfish* Red Knight* GMT til YY Red wh-ev Sex rev nil 3000 1663 1650  600 525 519 0.44 0.42 0.42 0.34 0.34 0.34 1320 698.46 693  204 178.5 176.46 $9240 $4889 $4851   $1428  $1249 $1235 YIELD IN $ US OF EACH FINGERLING TYPE PER YEAR ACCORDING TO ABOVE This chart is a stacked chart, that is the measurable elements are stacked even though the total weight in red, of fish is not the same as the yield of fillet or the total revenue for the fillet it is stacked as if you could add them together, I plan to fix this as soon as I have time. It still illustrates the vast differences between the fingerlings accurately. The following chart more accurately reflects the differences. Here is a recent evaluation of the quality of the Fingerlings produced by my breeders compared to the rest. YIELD IN DOLLARS PER YEAR FROM FILLET SOLD AT $7.00 PER KILOGRAM PRESENTED AS A PIE CHART PICK YOUR PIECE OF THE PIE All other known tilapia breeds or fingerlings provide yields lower than the three used in the number 4. 5, and 6 of the above chart. If your are currently growing any of the three tilapia fingerlings on the right half of the chart and are making a profit or at least trying to, please consider that your Gross Returns per year between the Pennyfish* and the best any one of the Fingerlings on the right half of the chart are many times in favor of the Pennyfish* Important info: Just weighted one of the Chocolate Hybrids last weighted on Sep 15 at 3.3 pounds and it now weights 4 pounds on Nov 28, 1998. I brought the fish to my farm and have been keeping it with one other Chocolate Hybrid in a 8 ft x 3 ft x 1.4 ft deep tank and have only fed it about once every two days. Poor Fish. Please call me if you have a need to consult. Mike Sipe 386 454-8445 mikesipe@alltel.net

 

Species: T Mossambica Red Butterball: T Mossambica Red Butterball

T Mossambica Red Butterball T_Mossambica_Red_Butterball_450

 

Species: T Mossambica Red: T Mossambica Red

T Mossambica Red Nilotica Red T Mossambica Red Red 1 T Mossambica Red Red 2 T_Mossambica_Red_Red 3 T_Mossambica_Red_Red_4

 

Species: Species Information

Species Information Welcome Welcome to cherrysnapper.com's species section. Here you will find information and quality images of every specie we are currently working with, including hybrids. Tilapia Pureline Tilapia is a genus of fish that belongs to the Cichlid family of which the Angle fish, Oscar, African Cichlids and others belong. The Tilapias are one of the major groups of food fishes around the world, especially in the tropical and semitropical areas, and have been cultivated for thousands of years. Pictures or carvings appear on artifacts and monoliths in Egyptian tombs as far back as 2,000 bc, but only in the last 50 years have we began to focus on developing them as an alternative to harvesting everything that moves in the seas and lakes. In the last 25 years we have concentrated on developing better gene lines in pure species of Mossambica, Hornorum, Nilotica and Aurea. Tilapia Hybrids As mentioned in the previous paragraph, we have concentrated on developing better gene lines in pure species of Tilapias. These Tilapia can then be crossed to create f-1 hybrids with all of the good combinations of improved characteristics and also with hybrid vigor and evenness of growth rate. These new varities of hybrids such as the PennyfishTM offer improvements in cost of production that promise to reduce the cost of producing fish for food to match that of Chicken, and to do it in a fraction of the space of other animal crops. All in all it may prove to be the cheapest source of low cost high quality protein on Earth. Experimental Here we will explain improvements to various gene lines which are currently being worked for. SINGLE Pennyfish breeder colony This breeder colony consist of 5 female orange t. mossambica which carries the xx chromosomes for sex determination and there fore produces only eggs with the x chromosomes for sex determination. The Supermale, T. hornorum is a black tilapia fish from Zanzibar which was originally named t. mossambicus variety Zanzibar. The breeder colony has one Supermale which carries the genes ZZ for sex determination and so only can produce sperm with a Z chromosome for sex determination. When the Supermale t. hornorum (ZZ) mates with a female orange T. mossambica (xx) all of the fertilized eggs have (Zx) chromosomes for sex determination which means they will all be male since the Z chromosome dominates the x chromosome and so only pennyfish males are produced. Each such colony can produce in excess of 31,250 pennyfish during the estimated five years of breeding that they are capable of with good care. Click here to go to our shopping cart.

 

Species: Sex Graphics: Genetics Explained

Genetics Explained Mike Sipe Graphics of Sex Determination Genes When I first got started with the production of Pure line breeders the two species now known as tilapia mossambica and tilapia horonorum, were known as tilapia mossambica (mossambic) and tilapia mossambica (zanzibar). They were considered such close relatives that they were grouped as two sub species and so the varieties were designated by where they came from. During this time the determination of species was not made by using any DNA markers and only the "science" of meristics was used to determine the species. Since the "science" of meristics was based on such things as gill rakers, which meant counting and typing the gill rakers in each fish. What is more, is that when the number of spines on the Dorsal fin or any other physical characteristics that could be easily counted was used, the job of determining the species of a live fish was difficult because one had to hold the speciman still while the counting was done and needless to say the fish rarely cooperated so the time it took to verify that a group of fish was one speicies or another could be several weeks and even then when a fish looked exactly like another fish, taxonomist tended to group them in the same species. When I started we had very little to go on except that where the particular tilapia was collected from and that is why it was so important to be sure that the fish you were working with was the same as the original ones that were used to produce the all male hybrid. T. mossambica and t. horonorum were virtually impossible to separate using meristics because so many of the physical characteristics overlapped. Mature males both had a jet black coloration with a red rim around it and white areas that were very similar, and the females were even worse. So any group of researchers who attempted to hold both pure gene lines in containment anywhere where fry or fingerlings could escape and make their way back to any holding area were a constant threat to the purity of the brood stock. Then in 1981 Giora W. Wohlfarth and Gideon Hulata published "Applied Genetics of Tilapia" where a large number of species and hybrids were compared using information collected from many scientist all over the world. On page 9 of this publication they write "Differences in appearance between species to be hybridized is important in distinguishing between parent species and their hybrids. The sustained production of all-male hybrids between S. (during this period of time tilapia were designated as Sarentherodon instead of tilapia) niloticus females and S. hornorum males , compared to the eventual appearance of varying proportions of females in the crosses between S. mossambicus and s. hornorum, or between s. niloticus and S. aureaus, may be due to the relative ease of distinguishing between S. niloticus and S. hornorum." What they seem to be saying was that the hybrid between niloticus and hornorum was more reliable and the sustained production over time seemed to be better because the two species were easily separated by looking at them, whereas the hybrid between pure gene lines of mossambicus and hornorum looked just alike which led to increasing percentages of females in the hybrids which was a no, no. This difference is just what I began the color development of the t. mossambica to create. Below I have presented 5 graphics of the inheritance of t. mossambica (orange), t. horonorum, t. nilotica (red), and of the hybrids of t. mossambica X t. horonorum (called the Pennyfish) and of mossambica X t. nilotica (called Chocolate hybrid) Five Graphics of sex Chromosome Inheritance and the resulting influence on sex determination. Graphic One: t. hornorum This graphic is about the inheritance of sex chromosomes in the pure gene line of tilapia hornorum. The female t. hornorum shown here on the left has one chromosome which is designated W and one chromosome which is designated Z. The W chromosome apparently is loaded with sites that manufacture estrogen to such and extent that the amount of estrogen that shows up in the blood stream of the developing fingerling is great enough to trigger the development of ovaries which then go on to manufacture eggs as the fish matures. The Z chromosome also has some few sites that manufacture estrogen, but many more that manufacture testosterone, however those sites that produce estrogen on the Z chromosome add to the total estrogen level in the bloodstream enough to facilitate the development of ovaries. The Z chromosome also has a number of sites which produce testosterone, but there is not enough testosterone produced in the bloodstream to overcome the development of ovaries and stimulate the development of testicles instead. So, when sexual reproduction begins in this female the cells that are to become eggs begin a process called meiosis. In the process of meiosis the chromosomes are separated into separate areas where eggs will form and one area separates out the Z chromosome and the other area separates out the W chromosome. Once these two chromosomes are separated along with all of the other paired chromosomes then each area will have half of the total chromosomes present in the original cell. The total number of chromosomes in the cells of t. hornorum is 44 which means when all of the sorting is done during meiosis the are where each of the sex chromosomes ends up will have 21 other chromosomes sharing the space. So when all is said and done and meiosis is complete and eggs are formed each egg will have either an X chromosome and 21 other chromosomes or a W chromosome and 21 other chromosomes. In other words each egg will have 22 total chromosomes. Meanwhile back at the fish ranch meiosis is also occurring in the male t. hornorum which also has 44 total chromosomes in each of its cells. In the case of the male, meiosis occurs in the testicular tissue where each of the pairs of chromosomes are separated only this time the do not form eggs they form tiny package with a moving tail which we call sperm. Each sperm will now have a Z chromosome and 21 other chromosomes. Since the Z chromosome has a number of sites that produce estrogen and an equal or greater number that produce testosterone, whenever these Z chromosomes come to form a cell which gets the Z from both the mother and the father hornorum then it will have only Z chromosomes in its sex determination package, or in other words it will be ZZ and so will produce enough testosterone in the blood stream of the new fish to determine that the new fish will form testicular tissue or testicles and thus be male. All of this may seem somewhat difficult to grasp, because what I am saying is that the newly created fish at the time when it is first swimming has not become either sex and the amount of either testosterone or estrogen in its bloodstream will influence whether it produces ovaries or testicles and therefore whether it will be male or female. So the fact that fish that will become male hornorum have two chromosomes to determining sex and they are both Z chromosomes means that the total amount of testosterone produced in the bloodstream of by both of these Z chromosomes influences in a positive way the development of testicular tissue. Just how much testosterone is produced by the Z chromosomes is still a question, but it is enough that when the hornorum males are used to fertilize female fish of another species which carry a different sort of chromosome (generally the X chromosome) almost 100% of the fish produced by this breeding are male. Graphic Two: t. mossambica The separation out, and the breeding of the pure gene line of Orange t. mossambica is one of the most important achievements made in the development of the process of producing all male hybrids because the fact that we can set them up to breed and tell within a few days whether we have made any mistakes in choosing the breeders. If for instance we sex 200 females to set up as breeders and someone allows a male to slip through the sexing process due to a fold in the sperm papilla or a wrinkle where it does not belong, when fry are created by this male breeding with one of the females the fry will be uniformly orange instead of metallic copper colored and if we get some orange fry then we can go back through the breeders one by one and eliminate the male orange t. mossambica. Also, if we have picked 40 male t. hornorum to breed with the Orange t. mossambica females and one of the fish choosen as male is actually female and she breeds with one of the intended males the color of all of these fry will be a normal grey color and so if normal grey colored fry turn up in the fry we know to go back through each male and find the mistake and get rid of her. This gives us the ability to check for errors and maintain the pure gene lines whereas with the two pure gene lines of the tilapia hornorum and the tilapia mossambica that look alike it is so easy to make mistakes that end up ruining the gene lines for further production of all male hybrids. Evidence suggest that many of the errors made in the dozens of cases where tilapia mossambica and tilapia hornorum were kept at the same facility could have been avoided if they had had this color distinction. In other words it gives us immediate feedback that can be used to preserve the process of producing pure gene lines for future use. This graphic is about the inheritance of sex chromosomes in the pure gene line of tilapia mossambica. The orange female t. mossambica shown here on the left has one chromosome which is designated X and one chromosome which is designated Y. The X chromosome is loaded with sites that manufacture estrogen to such and extent that when there are two X chromosomes side by side pumping out estrogen the amount of estrogen that shows up in the blood stream of the developing fingerling is great enough to trigger the development of ovaries which then go on to manufacture eggs as the fish matures. The Y chromosome also has some few sites that manufacture estrogen, but many more that manufacture testosterone so that when the Y chromosome shows up in a cell that has an X chromosome it overwhelms the process and produces enough testosterone to cause the development of testicles in the developing tilapia fish. So, when sexual reproduction begins in this female the cells that are to become eggs begin a process called meiosis. In the process of meiosis the chromosomes are seperated into seperate areas where eggs will form and one area seperates out the X chromosomes. Once these two chormosomes are seperated along with all of the other paired chromosomes then each area will have half of the total chromosomes present in the original cell. The total number of chromosmes in each of the cells of t. hornorum is 44 which means when all of the sorting is done during meiosis the area where each of the sex chromosomes ends up will have 21 other chromosomes sharing the space. So when all is said and done and meiosis is complete and eggs are formed each egg will have either an X chromosome and 21 other chromosomes or a W chromosome and 21 other chromosomes. In other words each egg will have 22 total chromosomes. Meanwhile back at the fish ranch meiosis is also occurring in the male t. mossambica which also has 44 total chromosomes in each of its cells. In the case of the mature male mossambica, meiosis occurs in the testicular tissue where each of the pairs of chromosmes are seperated only this time they do not form eggs they form tiny package with a moving tail which we call sperm. Each sperm will now have either an X chromosome and 21 other chromosomes, or a Y chromosome and 21 other chromosomes. The Y chromosome is a particularly potent producer of testosterone and when combined with most X chromosomes still produces enough total testosterone to switch the balance in the blood stream of the developing fish to stimulate the development of testicles. It is important to remember that genetics of tilapias is at most a groping tortuous process where we are still forced to guess about what goes on inside the tilapia on a microscopic scale which we cannot as yet see, that results in the creation of a fast growing male, a slow growing male, a slow growing female or a fast growing female. We know that the development of the reproductive tissue occurs sometime within the first 30 days or so of life and that if we alter the relative amounts of testosterone and estrogen present in the bloodstream of the developing tilapia that we can create the situation where the reproductive tissue becomes a testicle or becomes an ovary. In most tilapias this seems to be an event that is permanent, but in other tilapias it appears to be a temporary situation and can reverse itself after a few months if the right conditions occur. Several things within each tilapia can appear to have an effect on the developing tissue of the fish. One of these factors appears to be temperature. Some workers have reported major differences in normally bred tilapias as far as the numbers of males and females that occur at different temperature ranges.