WESTON — Tilapia aren’t just for dinner anymore — they can also keep your water garden or pond clean.

“That’s what we have for algae control in ponds,” Don Schooner said. “That’s their favorite thing, and we go through a lot of them.”

Schooner is the owner of Inspired By Nature, the pond and lake management side of his businesses. The associated business is Schooner Farms. They are both located at the corner of U.S. 6 and Otsego Pike.

Tilapia love to eat common filamentous algae, which are among the most common found in water gardens and ponds in Northwest Ohio.

“They do a knock-down, drag-out job of eating filamentous algae. They are not a magic bullet, but they are certainly a powerful tool in the toolbox of pond management,” Schooner said.

He recommends combining the tilapia with various beneficial microbes, enzymes and aeration.

“We can even bring back ponds that are in very bad shape, over a couple seasons, to get them to look and act like they did when they were much younger,” Schooner said.

He said forecasts for this summer are for hot and dry weather, which means a lot of growth.

Schooner said that a half-acre pond will use 13-16 pounds of tilapia. In Northwest Ohio the ponds range in size from a quarter-acre pond, for a backyard, up to a half-acre.

He said that a one-third acre pond in good shape will go with 10-13 pounds of tilapia for initial stocking.

Inspired By Nature has 10 tanks for fish.

“Our goal is to be able to create an all-natural, no-chemical, management method for ponds, and we have done that over our 26 years of business,” Schooner said. “We want people to get away from using copper, or heavy metals in the ponds, and do it all naturally. It works very well. It’s good for the environment and the ecosystem.”

He said you can kill your algae with a chemical, like copper, and then it falls to the bottom of the pond, causing the layer of growth to occur. Ironically, the chemicals cause a recurring and expanding algae problem.

After 17 years of selling the tilapia, they now sell out of their several 1,000-pound shipments of young tilapia. People will drive for several hours to get the fish that look somewhat like large bluegill.

“We like to get tilapia in by the end of the first week of July. That’s about the time we’re still going to get good consumption, meaning that they are going to be eating a lot of algae in the pond,” Schooner said. “They only live one season. That’s why we’re allowed to use them. They can’t get out of control. They have a hard reset on them. They live until about November.

Tilapia are an annual fish, but don’t put off the purchase, because they will breed several times a year.

“They will get quite large, for an annual fish. You might get them at a quarter pound, on average that’s 5 or 6 inches, and they are sexually mature. They will reproduce, three, possibly four times, yet this year. They grow very quickly, because they can eat a lot,” Schooner said.

The goal is to have little or no algae.

“They are interesting, because they are mouth brooders, meaning that they will make a nest, a fairly sizable nest, shaped like a meteor crater, and they will use that nest until the eggs are fertilized, then they will take the eggs in their mouth and swim off.”

That nest will be used by several different fish.

Some people think tilapia eat their young, but Schooner says not to worry, the mother tilapia do need to spit out the little ones to continue to eat algae.

“When they see danger, they will call the little ones back and they will go back in the mother’s mouth, for protection,” Schooner said.

They can get up to a pound and half in size. In addition to being algae cleaners, they are also good to eat. Around Labor Day they become active and that’s when Schooner said they are best fished.

The dorsal fins are longer and pointy, which protects them against bass, which are a major predator.

“Even if you don’t have an large algae problem, they make a great forage species, meaning they will reproduce enough to create a lot of small tilapia for the larger predator fish to eat the smaller ones,” Schooner said.

He added that the size tilapia he stocks will start reproducing within a week or two after purchase.

“Many of our pond owners will fish for (tilapia). They are excellent eating. If you have ever eaten tilapia from a store, that are raised in tanks and on fish food, not the greens, like algae, these tilapia will taste much better,” Schooner said. “Plus you can harvest out many, many pounds. They are hard to catch, but they will fight really hard.”

He said that many pond owners will keep a fish cage for the ones they catch, cleaning them all at once, when they are ready to eat a bigger dinner.

Schooner does sell other types of fish. In the spring he has striped bass, fathead minnows, redear sunfish. They also stock grass carp, or white amherst, which will help keep vegetation down.

Bring your 5-gallon buckets for fish and Schooner will be happy to give tips on keeping a pond clean of heavy metals and other chemicals, the all-natural way, with fish.