The predators can be other fish or birds.
When we arrived at our home, our lake already was stocked with fish,
some of these were predators which kept a balance. These included
peacock bass, or as they call it here tocanare and also triara.
Before we decided to start tilapia farming we use to catch the triara
by using a piece of styrofoam with a hook and line attached. To this
we would put a small fish as bait. We tossed these into the lake in
the evening and in the morning, we had caught a triara.
The birds can be problematic to control if you find they are taking
your larger fish. Obviously those you don't want them to take and
giant egrets will take amazingly large fish.
Some of the birds could be:
Cormorants
Egrets
Herons
kingfishers
The cormorant is a diving bird which will be on the surface of the
water and dive down for fish. These birds are notorious as they can
decimate a lake of fish. We have only seen one here on our lake and
he was encourage to leave.
The egret will wade into the water and stab at the fish. There are
many different types and sizes of egrets. We have seen the smaller
snowy egret work as a team herding small shoals of fish into the
water's edge where they are easily plucked out. The giant egret
prefers to work alone and in fact will often chase off others who
want to encroach on its feeding ground.
The heron will wait at the shore for fish to come within striking
distance. We have seen them using bait, namely fish pellets to lure a
fish to the shore.
The last is the kingfisher. Here we have three different sized
kingfishers and all hover above the water, spot their target, pull
their wings back and with the accuracy of a missile plummet into the
water, normally coming out with a fish.
Depending on your circumstances and the size of your fish, you may
wish to encourage or discourage the birds. If you have an over
population problem then these will be a help. If your fish have just
arrived and are small, then they are easily preyed upon and should be
discouraged with nets, noise or other birds such as geese. We found
when we had geese they were aggressive against other waterfowl.
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