One Year Of Catfish Farming

[Somtham]

It has been 1 year and 1 day since we planted our first catfish. There are 10 ponds with a total surface area of around 2,500 sq meters. In the one year we have purchased 459,800 baby fish ranging in size from 3" fingerlings (first plants) to 1cm fry which is what we regularly buy now. From this we have sold 25,400 kg of adult fish with sales prices ranging from B25-B33/kg.

Looking at operating expenses to date we are down just under B300k. This does not include any capital expenses incurred to set up the farm ie. excavation, clay, plumbing, pumps, etc. Over 80% of the expenses have been on purchasing floating pellet fish food. Cash flow is positive so I'm not to worried at this point and there are enough fish in the ponds that if we stopped farming today the B300k would be recouperated.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Korat to look at a machine for making floating fish pellets. The machine cost delivered and set-up was B205K and was quoted as being capable of producing 100-120kg of food per hour. we would save on fish feed costs but I calculated the return on the machine would take about 14 months. Not good enough to convince me to buy the equipment.

So some questions for you farmers out there.

Is anyone producing their own fish feed and/or know of equipment suppliers in Thailand? Any ideas out there for lowering feed costs without a lot of work involved? Any other ideas such as changing species, etc to improve the financials?

Today we are going to try our first direct sales to a talat naat vendor. If this is succesful it will improve sales by 12% as opposed to selling to a wholesaler.

Although the financials aren't so great it has been very good for us. We're never bored, the work is quite easy, we've met a lot of people, the wife has tremendous face amonst the community (they only see the sales of B100k+ and not the food expense of B100k++!), it's kept me healthier than I would be sitting around drinking beer all day, etc.

Here's some details on the financials and any ideas, comments are appreciated.

rgds

[Jamie]

Do you have any type of fish farming software to help you project growth based on rate of feeding, water temps etc? Some of this software can be very beneficial.

I know that you are in Thailand but some of the software below may be helpful.

http://www.aquafarm.com/aqua-soft/Operatio..._Management.htm

[chownah]

I know almost nothing about fish farming but as a business wouldn't a return on investment of 14 months be an attractive investment?...I mean for the fish pellet maker. It seems that it has the potential to make up the deficit and turn you to profitability...but business decisions are often more complicated than this.

[macan]

Theres a Danish guy in Buriram who has one of the feed extruders made in Korat which he uses to make feed for tilapia and catfish, not sure if he is a member of this forum but you can PM me for his contact details.

I believe that the factory in Korat chopped up an Italian made extruder to 'borrow' the technology, not sure if anyone else has done it but i doubt if you would find cheaper. Of course you dont necessarily need floating pellets for catfish so you could just get away with a food mincer for a couple of thousand baht but the result will not be so good. Sharing the cost with some other farmers might be useful as the machine would be working to it's capacity and you would get a better price on raw materials if you buy in bulk.

If there are tilapia cage farmers in your area you could consider nursing tilapia to supply them; it's a 2 month cycle where you stock around 40,000 small fry (0.2g) per rai then harvest when they get to about 20g. The small fry cost about 0.5 baht and you sell them for about 2 baht.

[ozzydom]

Somtham,We introduced our first fry march 14 last year, we put 10,000 1-1.5 cm fry into a 1600 sq met pond, some of the original stock are now 1kg, (Pla Nin by the way)

Our initial problem was slow growth rates caused by the fact that the fry were not chemically sterilised as they were supposed to be,and as they start breeding at 100 gram we ended up with 10,s of thousands of fish ranging from newly hatched to 600 gram,

The problem does not seem as bad now , maybe because we now have water just about spot-on (we use the green water method )and Phytoplankton and micro organism which is Pla Nin natural food (they are screen feeders),and the proprietry food we give is really a supplement.

It may also be that as we now have possibly 5 or 6 generations in pond No.1 they are breeding to suit the environmental conditions.

We only do direct sales which are between 20-50 kg per day and the numbers of saleable fish dont seem to be diminishing.

I only feed that pond 15kg of 18.5 % protein per day at 11bt per kg, we sell fish directly at 50bt per kg,so its reasonably profitable,we also take about 3kg of the small shrimp from that pond and at 100 bt per kg it pays the food bill for that pond.

We now have two more ponds going,these are about 1000 sq met each and we stocked these with 7000x 3cm fingerlings each on Dec 20 and they are doing great at this stage.

The initial pond was constructed the normal Thai design with 5 metre x 1 metre deep edges and a 3metre deep centre hole, but after discussions with the professor in charge of fisheries during which I learnt that Pla Nin normally only live in the top 50cm of water,I had the new ponds built flat bottomed like a prawn pond and only maintain a water depth of about 1 metre

Our last pond will be 120m x 14 met and this one is earmarked for giant freshwater prawn. market for these will be limited because of price locally, but what the hel_l ,Ive got a big barby..

Ponds 2 and 3 will be grown on to about 1kg fish to be processed to skinned and boned fillets for which I have established there is a market.

By the way I built floating cages into which fry are placed initially and are released to the ponds at about 7cm,mortality using this method is way down on industry norms.

We also catch our sales fish by cast and lift net and keep these in a float net.

[Maizefarmer]

Interresting read - food is a fixed cost, which in this case accounts for 80% of outgoings.

That is not high - it is super-high by any ag accounting model (to use your own words "they see B100K but not B100k++ food costs).

Question: something doesn't add up here (or am not I reading correctly) - you've sold 25400kg of fish @ B25 per kg (using lower figure u provide).

That gives around Baht 635 000 (income) by my figures.

Against those figures a B200K investment for the business, which will tackle the fixed cost which acounts for 80% of outgoings, would by my reackoning be an extremly good investment.

The question then is, if you purchased this pellet mnachine, to what percentage would the 80% be reduced to, and by by how much would your margin improve. You may recall from some of my postings in other threads, I look at fixed costs in terms of margin, not so much in terms of profit/loss.

...difficult to work this one out because I can't get my head round the Baht 635K income figure

Yes - direct selling to the vendor or consumer is always a good thing (bin the middle man).

Where have I gone wrong Somtham, or am I just still just taking to much medication??

MF

[Crushdepth]

A few articles below on various aspects of feed management that might give you a few ideas on reducing feed costs. There is often room to cut back on feeds or to use them more effectively (eg. feeding economically optimum protein level rather than the biologically optimum protein level, not feeding to satiation, feeding in confined areas of the pond to avoid wastage etc).

Reducing feed costs in aquaculture: Is the use of mixed feeding schedules the answer for semi-intensive practices?

Aquaculture fundamentals: Getting the most out of your feed

Aquaculture fundamentals: Getting the most out of your feed part II

Feeds and Feeding for Inland Aquaculture in Mekong River Countries (Book)

If your stocking density is low then you might look at fertilising the pond a bit to stimulate production of natural foods (don't bother if your pond is already bright green!).

Aquaculture fundamentals: The use of lime, gypsum, alum and potassium permanganate in water quality management.

You could also try to source some wastes as alternatives to commercial feed (catfish are often fed on chicken guts etc) or look at polyculture - growing several complementary species together. Or maybe look at integrating your fish farming with other crops like vegetables, freshwater prawns etc (not sure if catfish and prawn can coexist but you get the idea), eg:

Integrated aquaculture-agriculture systems in Bangladesh.

Edited March 1, 2007 by Crushdepth

[Khonwan]

Somtham, was that 920,350 baht fish food cost over 366 days? Are you feeding 7 bags (total 140kg), or more, per day? Any chance that you are perhaps overfeeding? Fish will eat more than they can convert - the excess is simply excreted. Your stocking rates and feed rates both appear high to me...though I've not farmed fish commercially. Are you buying direct from a feed mill yet?

[ozzydom]

A few articles below on various aspects of feed management that might give you a few ideas on reducing feed costs. There is often room to cut back on feeds or to use them more effectively (eg. feeding economically optimum protein level rather than the biologically optimum protein level, not feeding to satiation, feeding in confined areas of the pond to avoid wastage etc).

Reducing feed costs in aquaculture: Is the use of mixed feeding schedules the answer for semi-intensive practices?

Aquaculture fundamentals: Getting the most out of your feed

Aquaculture fundamentals: Getting the most out of your feed part II

Feeds and Feeding for Inland Aquaculture in Mekong River Countries (Book)

If your stocking density is low then you might look at fertilising the pond a bit to stimulate production of natural foods (don't bother if your pond is already bright green!).

Aquaculture fundamentals: The use of lime, gypsum, alum and potassium permanganate in water quality management.

You could also try to source some wastes as alternatives to commercial feed (catfish are often fed on chicken guts etc) or look at polyculture - growing several complementary species together. Or maybe look at integrating your fish farming with other crops like vegetables, freshwater prawns etc (not sure if catfish and prawn can coexist but you get the idea), eg:

Integrated aquaculture-agriculture systems in Bangladesh.

Some very informative reading there, thanks Crushdepth.

[ozzydom]

Somthan, my maths is a bit scratchy and please correct me if I,m wrong .

From your figures it appears you used about 51000 kg of food to harvest 25000kg of fish, if thats correct ? your FCR is about 2:0

With catfish food at about 19.5 bt per kg that would be a nett loss of about 14bt per kg at your lower selling price.

I use small pellet catfish feed for our juveniles because of its higher (30%) protein to give them a good start and I cant get them on to 18% feed quick enough, its a real drain on the pocket. The 9bt per kg makes a lot of difference to the bottom line.

[macan]

I also did some scratchy maths and, assuming you sold the fish at 4/kg (and I'm conveniently ignoring the fish that are still in your ponds) , your survival was only 22% which explains the poor FCR. Sorting that out will go a long way to helping on feed costs.

Some possible causes;you were cheated on the number of fry that you bought, your fish got disease, your fish are being stolen or predated or maybe all of the above. Unfortunately all are common. Assuming that you probably already have taken steps to manage the 'human and other predator' problems we are left with disease, and from your expenses I saw that you paid out for medication of some kind. There is a lot of good information on health management for aquaculture online and in various libraries around Bangkok (AIT, Kasetsart and Chulalongkorn) and the Thai DoF provide free diagnostics if you can get your fish to them. The best place to go is the Aquatic Animal Health Research Institute in Kasetsart though, with fish, by the time you are aware that you need the boffins it's usually too late.

You are probably dealing with pernicious mortality/losses/disappearance that is difficult to attribute to anything which leaves you at harvest time wondering where all the fish (and expensive feed) went....and managing this is a big headache, though it is possible with good record keeping and husbandry. Anyway I wont start on a big lecture because i dont really know anything about your system.

By the way from the figures on your charts I calculated your average price/kg was 33 Baht (Income= -289640+1128006) so at least that is better than you thought

[Somtham]

Theres a Danish guy in Buriram who has one of the feed extruders made in Korat which he uses to make feed for tilapia and catfish, not sure if he is a member of this forum but you can PM me for his contact details.

I believe that the factory in Korat chopped up an Italian made extruder to 'borrow' the technology, not sure if anyone else has done it but i doubt if you would find cheaper. Of course you dont necessarily need floating pellets for catfish so you could just get away with a food mincer for a couple of thousand baht but the result will not be so good. Sharing the cost with some other farmers might be useful as the machine would be working to it's capacity and you would get a better price on raw materials if you buy in bulk.

If there are tilapia cage farmers in your area you could consider nursing tilapia to supply them; it's a 2 month cycle where you stock around 40,000 small fry (0.2g) per rai then harvest when they get to about 20g. The small fry cost about 0.5 baht and you sell them for about 2 baht.

Macan - do you know how to get in contact with the Dane? I'm sure it's the same company as I saw a farangs picture standing by a machine on the salemans computer and the salesman said the guy was from Buriram. I'd be interested in finding out from the Dane how the machine is running, actual output, maintenace, support, etc.

I am also thinking about converting the pond with the most pak boon growing to Tilapia this year which there is a market for and feed costs should be minimal. Not so much interested in buying fry and selling fingerlings but it's an option.

Thanks for you input.

[Somtham]

Do you have any type of fish farming software to help you project growth based on rate of feeding, water temps etc? Some of this software can be very beneficial.

I know that you are in Thailand but some of the software below may be helpful.

http://www.aquafarm.com/aqua-soft/Operatio..._Management.htm

There's a lot of packages in your list. Have you used any of them and what benefits do you see. Right now we typically harvest about ~2 tons per 20kg of food fed daily just before harvest.

rgds

[Somtham]

Somtham,We introduced our first fry march 14 last year, we put 10,000 1-1.5 cm fry into a 1600 sq met pond, some of the original stock are now 1kg, (Pla Nin by the way)

Our initial problem was slow growth rates caused by the fact that the fry were not chemically sterilised as they were supposed to be,and as they start breeding at 100 gram we ended up with 10,s of thousands of fish ranging from newly hatched to 600 gram,

The problem does not seem as bad now , maybe because we now have water just about spot-on (we use the green water method )and Phytoplankton and micro organism which is Pla Nin natural food (they are screen feeders),and the proprietry food we give is really a supplement.

It may also be that as we now have possibly 5 or 6 generations in pond No.1 they are breeding to suit the environmental conditions.

We only do direct sales which are between 20-50 kg per day and the numbers of saleable fish dont seem to be diminishing.

I only feed that pond 15kg of 18.5 % protein per day at 11bt per kg, we sell fish directly at 50bt per kg,so its reasonably profitable,we also take about 3kg of the small shrimp from that pond and at 100 bt per kg it pays the food bill for that pond.

We now have two more ponds going,these are about 1000 sq met each and we stocked these with 7000x 3cm fingerlings each on Dec 20 and they are doing great at this stage.

The initial pond was constructed the normal Thai design with 5 metre x 1 metre deep edges and a 3metre deep centre hole, but after discussions with the professor in charge of fisheries during which I learnt that Pla Nin normally only live in the top 50cm of water,I had the new ponds built flat bottomed like a prawn pond and only maintain a water depth of about 1 metre

Our last pond will be 120m x 14 met and this one is earmarked for giant freshwater prawn. market for these will be limited because of price locally, but what the hel_l ,Ive got a big barby..

Ponds 2 and 3 will be grown on to about 1kg fish to be processed to skinned and boned fillets for which I have established there is a market.

By the way I built floating cages into which fry are placed initially and are released to the ponds at about 7cm,mortality using this method is way down on industry norms.

We also catch our sales fish by cast and lift net and keep these in a float net.

Looks like more reasons to try Tilapia and keep persuing the direct sales. I think we could manage selling about 150kg every other day. 7 of our ponds are 0.7-1.2m deep and the three small concrete ponds are ~0.8m deep. the dirt ponds were dug with the intention of growing the fresh water prawns but I backed off after reviewing the numbers. Next month we will plant prawns in one pond that is about 200 sqm. Like you said. Good for the barbie.

Thanks

[Somtham]

Interresting read - food is a fixed cost, which in this case accounts for 80% of outgoings.

That is not high - it is super-high by any ag accounting model (to use your own words "they see B100K but not B100k++ food costs).

Question: something doesn't add up here (or am not I reading correctly) - you've sold 25400kg of fish @ B25 per kg (using lower figure u provide).

That gives around Baht 635 000 (income) by my figures.

Against those figures a B200K investment for the business, which will tackle the fixed cost which acounts for 80% of outgoings, would by my reackoning be an extremly good investment.

The question then is, if you purchased this pellet mnachine, to what percentage would the 80% be reduced to, and by by how much would your margin improve. You may recall from some of my postings in other threads, I look at fixed costs in terms of margin, not so much in terms of profit/loss.

...difficult to work this one out because I can't get my head round the Baht 635K income figure

Yes - direct selling to the vendor or consumer is always a good thing (bin the middle man).

Where have I gone wrong Somtham, or am I just still just taking to much medication??

MF

Let me try to fill in the blanks. Expenses were 1,130,521 and Net loss was 285,890 so income from fish sales was 844,631. I pay B355 per bag for the bulk of the food we buy and with the machine I figure it can be made for B295 per bag which includes raw material, labor, and electric bill. So I think the 80% number would be reduced by 13% and the margin would improve by 17%.

thanks

[Somtham]

A few articles below on various aspects of feed management that might give you a few ideas on reducing feed costs. There is often room to cut back on feeds or to use them more effectively (eg. feeding economically optimum protein level rather than the biologically optimum protein level, not feeding to satiation, feeding in confined areas of the pond to avoid wastage etc).

...edit

Thanks fo all the links. It will keep me busy for awhile going through them. Right now my wife does all the feeding and only feeds at one end of the pond in the same place and same time every day. She does feed to satiation plus. It's a hard nut to crack but I'll try to convince her to back off. I've read quite a number of articles that say feed for 6 days and not feed on the 7th day. That may be an alternative as it will give her a break.

thanks

[Somtham]

Somtham, was that 920,350 baht fish food cost over 366 days? Are you feeding 7 bags (total 140kg), or more, per day? Any chance that you are perhaps overfeeding? Fish will eat more than they can convert - the excess is simply excreted. Your stocking rates and feed rates both appear high to me...though I've not farmed fish commercially. Are you buying direct from a feed mill yet?

Your calcs are close KW. It turns out to be an average of 6.5 bags a day and yes, 100% I over stock. Every time about the 3rd month of about 5 in a cycle I say to myself "why do you keep stocking at 100+/sqm?" and then when it's time to restock the pond I do the same.

rgds

[Somtham]

Somthan, my maths is a bit scratchy and please correct me if I,m wrong .

From your figures it appears you used about 51000 kg of food to harvest 25000kg of fish, if thats correct ? your FCR is about 2:0

With catfish food at about 19.5 bt per kg that would be a nett loss of about 14bt per kg at your lower selling price.

I use small pellet catfish feed for our juveniles because of its higher (30%) protein to give them a good start and I cant get them on to 18% feed quick enough, its a real drain on the pocket. The 9bt per kg makes a lot of difference to the bottom line.

The actual number was 47,700kg of food yielding an FCR of 1.87. I pay B370 for #1 33% protein food and B355 for #2 30% protein food or B17.75/kg. All of the Thai catfish farmers I speak with say don't use #3 25% protein as it pollutes the water and the fish don't grow as fast. I used it once before and tended to agree with them but don't have any data to prove it. May be it's time to try again for a complete cycle.

The B17.75 with FCR of 1.87 yields rough feed cost of B33.19 per kg of fish. Our average sale price for the year was B33.25 per kg!!

I have never seen catfish feed at the 18% protein level. Is it Tilapia feed?

Thanks

[Somtham]

I also did some scratchy maths and, assuming you sold the fish at 4/kg (and I'm conveniently ignoring the fish that are still in your ponds) , your survival was only 22% which explains the poor FCR. Sorting that out will go a long way to helping on feed costs.

Some possible causes;you were cheated on the number of fry that you bought, your fish got disease, your fish are being stolen or predated or maybe all of the above. Unfortunately all are common. Assuming that you probably already have taken steps to manage the 'human and other predator' problems we are left with disease, and from your expenses I saw that you paid out for medication of some kind. There is a lot of good information on health management for aquaculture online and in various libraries around Bangkok (AIT, Kasetsart and Chulalongkorn) and the Thai DoF provide free diagnostics if you can get your fish to them. The best place to go is the Aquatic Animal Health Research Institute in Kasetsart though, with fish, by the time you are aware that you need the boffins it's usually too late.

You are probably dealing with pernicious mortality/losses/disappearance that is difficult to attribute to anything which leaves you at harvest time wondering where all the fish (and expensive feed) went....and managing this is a big headache, though it is possible with good record keeping and husbandry. Anyway I wont start on a big lecture because i dont really know anything about your system.

By the way from the figures on your charts I calculated your average price/kg was 33 Baht (Income= -289640+1128006) so at least that is better than you thought

I've calculated survival in th past at 60-65%. I know I was cheated the first 4 purchases I made because on the 4th one I counted every fish and called the guy on it. I may have been cheated a few times after that but I caught on quick to the sellers and now I sample count every lot. I have now been buying from only 2 guys and they both know I count the fish and now the numbers are typically +/-10% mostly on the + side.

Our very first batch we grew had a outbreak that killed about 500kg. Although we still have some fish die since then it is usually the first day or two after planting new fry and I haven't really figured out how to correct that. On occasion we also have 2-3 dead fish per day per pond but a 50% water change usually eliminates that.

Theft, I see no traces of it other than when MIL stops by and she spend the day walking around with a net and always goes home with more bags than she came with!! Our property has a 2m plus concrete wall around it.

Predators, definately. So far it's been monitor lizards, egrets, kingfishers, and the other day I saw a heron on the side of one pond. The heron can stay and eat all he wants, I discourage the others.

Your calculations were right on.

rgds

[Somtham]

We left for a 90 check-in with immigration yesterday right after I posted the 1 year results. We got back today. I appreciate everone's replies but was it stupid to reply to every post? would it be better to just reply in one long post addressing everyone's input?

Thanks to all again

[ozzydom]

Somthan, my maths is a bit scratchy and please correct me if I,m wrong .

From your figures it appears you used about 51000 kg of food to harvest 25000kg of fish, if thats correct ? your FCR is about 2:0

With catfish food at about 19.5 bt per kg that would be a nett loss of about 14bt per kg at your lower selling price.

I use small pellet catfish feed for our juveniles because of its higher (30%) protein to give them a good start and I cant get them on to 18% feed quick enough, its a real drain on the pocket. The 9bt per kg makes a lot of difference to the bottom line.

The actual number was 47,700kg of food yielding an FCR of 1.87. I pay B370 for #1 33% protein food and B355 for #2 30% protein food or B17.75/kg. All of the Thai catfish farmers I speak with say don't use #3 25% protein as it pollutes the water and the fish don't grow as fast. I used it once before and tended to agree with them but don't have any data to prove it. May be it's time to try again for a complete cycle.

The B17.75 with FCR of 1.87 yields rough feed cost of B33.19 per kg of fish. Our average sale price for the year was B33.25 per kg!!

I have never seen catfish feed at the 18% protein level. Is it Tilapia feed?

Thanks

Spot on Somthan ,we only stock Tilapia,(Pla Nin) ,we get our fry from Govt Fisheries Division at Udon,they are pretty good and very helpful,they will do on the spot water analysis,post mortems etc and have a good library of publications and papers re fish farming (in english) I get them to download to a memory stick for convenience. They even gave me a full water testing kit which I had searched Thailand for.

The list of publications Crushdepth posted earlier in the thread is really informative, Alternate feeding (say 25%-30% Protein) and no feed days is covered in them. I used to feed in one place as /was the normal practice but now the experts (drips under pressure) say spreading the food more widely is the go,and now that I can observe the fish feeding ( from the hammock in the new cabana) I would have to agree.I stock pretty heavily and I notice that they dont eat their allocation and move over to let the smaller fish get theirs, they just keep stuffing it in, that may be part of the reason for size discrepancies.

[bina]

my husband is asking what is the selling price now in korat area for fish.......

anybody

also, i'm a bit lazy, isnt there a way to put all the numbers etc in a sort of chart??? with the cmparatives (fish type etc, selling price, loss etc?)

just feeding my husband's dream of rasing fish but good info to have aroun.

also, how do they do a post mortem of a fish? do they culture for disease and stuff also? does it cost u money to get results frm the lab?

[turnpike]

By the way I built floating cages into which fry are placed initially and are released to the ponds at about 7cm,mortality using this method is way down on industry norms.

just curious how you built yours, the size, etc. if you had a picture it would be nice.

i have a few large rogue pla chon in my pond which the wifes mom introduced from another pond. anyways, a few months later we caught one about 2 kgs, it was kept alive a few hours in a small concrete tank filled with water. in this time it barfed up 3 fingerlings, pla duk, about 3 inches long each. the pond is likely full of them because there were pla chon fry everywhere.

on another note, lets say i wanted to empty ALL fish from my pond (without pumping out the water). obviously i'd net as much as i could, then i was thinking electric shock. anyone try this? i like pla chon, but if i was to do it again, i think i'd leave them out.

[Somtham]

I also did some scratchy maths and, assuming you sold the fish at 4/kg (and I'm conveniently ignoring the fish that are still in your ponds) , your survival was only 22% which explains the poor FCR. Sorting that out will go a long way to helping on feed costs.

Macan - One more thing is that there are still fish in ponds of ~320,000 so should not be ignored in the calc.

rgds

[ozzydom]

By the way I built floating cages into which fry are placed initially and are released to the ponds at about 7cm,mortality using this method is way down on industry norms.

just curious how you built yours, the size, etc. if you had a picture it would be nice.

i have a few large rogue pla chon in my pond which the wifes mom introduced from another pond. anyways, a few months later we caught one about 2 kgs, it was kept alive a few hours in a small concrete tank filled with water. in this time it barfed up 3 fingerlings, pla duk, about 3 inches long each. the pond is likely full of them because there were pla chon fry everywhere.

on another note, lets say i wanted to empty ALL fish from my pond (without pumping out the water). obviously i'd net as much as i could, then i was thinking electric shock. anyone try this? i like pla chon, but if i was to do it again, i think i'd leave them out.

Turnpike,I build my floating frames out of 3" and 1 1/4' PVC piping the hapa nets can be bought at any seller of fishing nets,they are made from 120cm blue mesh,available in many sizes.

I do mine with 60cm below water and a 60cm fence as Pla Nin jump like salmon.

Mine are 4.5 x4.5 met sq. The net maker at DoF made my nets.

If someone can PM me instructions on posting photo,s from my PC or Digital I will post some for you.

[turnpike]

ozzydom,

thnx for responding. i assume the 3' piping is enuff to keep it afloat.

just wondering how many fry you put in, and how big they are when you release them. and does the net cost much to be made?

sorry for the bother, i think that's all the question i have.

thnx,

TP

[ozzydom]

ozzydom,

thnx for responding. i assume the 3' piping is enuff to keep it afloat.

just wondering how many fry you put in, and how big they are when you release them. and does the net cost much to be made?

sorry for the bother, i think that's all the question i have.

thnx,

TP

Plenty of flotation mate,I put 5000 x1.5 cm fry in each cageand release in about 3 weeks at 5.5cm, I feed on crushed 30% catfish pellets.

The 4.5m square x 120cm deep nets were 400bt each.

I sent the photos in a PM to you,hope they attached,I just cant fathom out how to attach to a posting. An A-Z on how to do it would be handy.

[Pond Life]

Oz

To attach a photo.

1. make sure you know where on your computer the photo is.

2. go to "add reply"

3. look below the box where you type your message, you will find an "attachments" box, click "browse" over on the right.

4. Find your photo in the box that opens up & click it, then click "open".

5. click "upload", wait awhile for it to upload.

6. click on the little arrow of the "manage current attachments" above the upload button.

7. click on the little page symbol with the green + sign.

8. hopefully a little bit of giberish will now apear where you've been writeing.

9. post reply

I think !

Good luck

[ozzydom]

ozzydom,

thnx for responding. i assume the 3' piping is enuff to keep it afloat.

just wondering how many fry you put in, and how big they are when you release them. and does the net cost much to be made?

sorry for the bother, i think that's all the question i have.

thnx,

TP

Plenty of flotation mate,I put 5000 x1.5 cm fry in each cageand release in about 3 weeks at 5.5cm, I feed on crushed 30% catfish pellets.

The 4.5m square x 120cm deep nets were 400bt each.

I sent the photos in a PM to you,hope they attached,I just cant fathom out how to attach to a posting. An A-Z on how to do it would be handy.

[ozzydom]

Oz

To attach a photo.

1. make sure you know where on your computer the photo is.

2. go to "add reply"

3. look below the box where you type your message, you will find an "attachments" box, click "browse" over on the right.

4. Find your photo in the box that opens up & click it, then click "open".

5. click "upload", wait awhile for it to upload.

6. click on the little arrow of the "manage current attachments" above the upload button.

7. click on the little page symbol with the green + sign.

8. hopefully a little bit of giberish will now apear where you've been writeing.

9. post reply

I think !

Good luck

Thanks mate, it worked after the 10th try.