Oreochromis niloticus x O. aureus

WelfareScore | farm

Li2  ❘  Po2  ❘  Ce1

Likelihood

Potential

Certainty

Israeli fish farmers started using an Oreochromis niloticus ♀ x O. aureus ♂ hybrid in the 1960s aiming to prevent uncontrolled propagation of tilapias in production ponds. It is also cultured in Saudi Arabia, with a great interest for aquaculture, especially because it has a better growth and yield than O. niloticus, O. aureus, and O. mossambicus. Furthermore, among several interspecific tilapia hybrids, O. niloticus x O. aureus has shown to be the most suitable one in terms of growth rate, sex ratio, cold tolerance, and body coloration. Stocking hormonally sex reversed FINGERLINGS has become the generalised practice to cope with the uncontrolled spawning issue under farming conditions. Usually, only males are farmed, but 2-3% of the sex-reversed FINGERLINGS remain as females which are still able to spawn in grow-out ponds. Thus, predator species are used to feed on these unwanted eggs, LARVAE, and FRY in warm freshwater aquaculture ponds.

Currently, important information about this hybrid is still missing in the literature, making it difficult to better assess its welfare in farms. Considering wild information, findings about home range as well as aggression and migratory distances is still missing for the parental species O. niloticus, whereas there are important knowledge gaps about home range, depth range, and migration patterns for the parental species O. aureus. Further research on reproduction, stress response, and malformations in farms are urgently needed. Moreover, important farming information about aggregation for the early life stages and substrate use for these age classes and SPAWNERS is still missing.

For details see: WelfareCheck | farm (latest major release: 2025-03-27)