Just had to show you guys... 2 years ago I got a few "Red Tilapia" for my Koi Pond and a few Normal Oreochromis mossambicus. My Pond leaked quite bad at that stage and in Winter (June/July) the neighbor has these horrible trees that are full of small purple berry like seeds and the tree is swarmed by birds especially Olive Thrush's . Now I know they are no pest in general but wow, when they eat these seeds they are the biggest nuisance bird ever. As they fly from that tree they start dropping/squirting great big purple splats everywhere. If they land somewhere you are guaranteed there will be a splat with few seeds in them. It is everywhere and so bad that every couple of days I need to take the pressure washer and wash the walls outside. I have sworn to kill his trees many times...anyway. They all come to sit at my pond to drink after eating and drop these purple seeds and fluid in my pond at such a rate that when I take the net and go over the bottom it is quite unbelievable the amount of seeds I get out of the dam. I only had a few Koi and a few Tilapia in the dam at that stage last year and when the birds came within a couple of days my Tilapia started getting sick as well as 2 or 3 koi. I took them out and put them all in a tank but some Tilapia did not make it as well as 2 koi and I had 1 baby Red/Blue hybrid Tilpaia that survived. Nicknamed Nemo. (One bred but the shoal was very small as the Tilapia were still young, the Red male was the father) My pond was fixed last year and running nicely. So I put my fish back last year. Tested my water this weekend and it has marginally less Nitartes in the water than my planted tank so my dam is very healthy. So this year my 4 Normal Tilapia as well as Nemo bred and I saw small yellow Tilapia in 1 school of fry. I still don't know If Nemo is a male or Female but there are few F2 hybrids in my dam and I caught this one when he was small and put him in the tank with mixed Malawi's. He lost his bright colors and now looks like this. I feed him color enhancing Cichlid food. Sometimes he is much darker in color then the orange spot on his forehead stands out. (The Tilapia I bought were supposed to be all male as the guy I got them from got them from a Tilapia breeder in bloemfontein who give them hormone treatment to get all males as they grow faster etc etc)
