Tilapia Farming In Nicaragua!!

**FisherCigarman** · 02-03-2007, 09:34 PM

For those of you who own land in Nicaragua, Tilapia Farming(on a small scale) is a good source of food and a local income. Anyone that has a small Parcel anywhere in Nicaragua can build a small pond and raise Tilapias,best of all your Local Marena should be able to provide the fry.(young fish)along with a brief overview/Capacitacion on how to feed them,when to harvest them etc. This type of program was implemented about 2 years ago in the nearby towns of Esteli, towns like Pueblo Nuevo,El Jicaro, Limay just to name a few,have been very succesful raising Tilapias for their own comsuption and to sell in their neighboring towns as well.

There is 1 major exporter of Tilapias in All of Nicaragua the name is Nicanor best known as Empresa Mares Nicas Noruego S.A. they finally got the concession from the goverment to run their bussines,which in my Nicaraguan Opinion, should have never done it, Unsupervised.

Their Operation is in Ometepe, Altagracia to be exact(in case you ever want to check them out) I got a chance to visit their cages last year,while fishig the "Ometepe 2005" fishing tournament, very interresting how they run their cage system.

There has been great controversy over this issue,since is a non-native species being raise over one of the biggest body of fresh water(second to the great lakes I beleive, I could be wrong). Eventhough the company says,that tilapias have been raise on cages over bodies of water all over the world without any major damage to the Native fish species,and acuatics plants, None of them come close to having as much mass and bio-diversity of fresh water species like Lake Nicaragua furthermore none of the other Countries have "Fresh Water Sharks" which they Do attack the cages and let FREE thousands of Tilapias in the process. This we(our Fishing team) were told by one of the Cage keeper we spoke to, that day. The people who feel the impact are the Local and sport Fisherman,who have seen a dramatic drop in the catch ratio of the "Guapote" Mojarra, Robalo, sabalo real just to name a few species. in the area of Ometepe.

Tilapias are an excellent source of food, nice firm white meat, when done responsibily it is an excellent alternative to buying your fish at the super market,best of all you have them right on your back yard, they don't come any fresher than that.

Just wanted to share a bit on Tilapia farming.

FAP

Huehuete Bob · 03-18-2007, 01:10 PM

How much land does it take cigarman?

**Just Plain John Wayne** · 03-18-2007, 01:15 PM

This is a real interesting topic..

Thanks SiGar Man....

**FisherCigarman** · 03-22-2007, 11:27 AM

Bob.

You could do it with as little as a 1/4 of a Manzana or smaller,at least that's the size of the small ponds I have seen in the Esteli Regions,such as Pueblo Nuevo and Limay.

Hope that helps