Abstract

Tilapia culture has been growing over the past decades as an excellent source of high-quality protein. Some of the Tilapia´s advantages are the ability to breed and produce new generations rapidly, tolerate shallow and turbid waters, resist a high level of disease and be flexible for culture under many different farming systems. These characteristics are the main reasons for its commercial success. However, one of them contributes to the major drawback of pond culture: the high level of uncontrolled reproduction that may occur in grow-out ponds. Uncontrolled reproduction yields to stunted growth and unmarketable fish due to offspring competing with the initial stock for food, besides other problems like less dissolved oxygen, greater release of ammonia and feces, heterogeneous sizes and overpopulation stress. Monosex production has been preferred in order to deal with these issues. Males are preferred because they grow almost twice as fast as the females. This paper reviews monosex male production techniques and their results, comprising environment manipulation, hybridization, sex reversal and genetic manipulation. The choice of a particular technique would depend on the legislation of each country. This review’s should help to select the appropriate technique depending on the market target and the commercial technology available.

Key words: Monosex production, hybridization, sex reversal, environmental and genetic sex determination.