One Year Of Catfish Farming

[Pond Life]

Thanks for the photo's.

Nifty looking cage, is it basicly the same under water as above exept with bottom ?

What size are the holes in the net in mm ?

I see youve got blue netting around the edge of the ponds, whats it for ?

Looks like youve got some Vetevier grass near the sala, is it gowing ok ?

[ozzydom]

Thanks for the photo's.

Nifty looking cage, is it basicly the same under water as above exept with bottom ?

What size are the holes in the net in mm ?

I see youve got blue netting around the edge of the ponds, whats it for ?

Looks like youve got some Vetevier grass near the sala, is it gowing ok ?

No frame below water Pond Life,the net is sewn together with a flat bottom and with a few metres of dog chain fitted around where the sides meet the bottom panel it hangs nicely,the net is the ordinary fine mesh netting they use for everything here.

I made a net from 11/2 " heavy fish netting to keep sales fish in but the fish knocked themselves around to much on it,virtually descaled themselves,(another bright idea that didnt work).

The cage is just my small interpretation of the big tuna nets we use in Oz.

Any small shop will have a contact who can sew together the netting,some even stock assorted sizes, they are called hapas ,most thais with a fish pond have one or two but they usually tie them in situ to bamboo poles pushed into the floor of the pond.

Here is a list of materials to build a frame,

4x3" elbows (90 degree bends)---12x 3"=11/2" tees---4x11/2" elbows---12x11/2"tees, PVC class 8.5 pipe---3" and 11/2" quantity to suit whatever size net you use. One tip-- If at all possible, buy imported PVC cement, the Thai Pipe Co stuff normally sold here is crap with a high failure rate.

The mesh you can see is an erosion trick,grass grows through it and binds the bung wall,heavy rain runs over the grass and mesh without washing the soil away.

Yep the Vetevier grass has taken OK.

Cheers

[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.

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

rgds

Ok, I was only going off the information that you supplied. It is starting to get complicated though because you are saying that 70% of the fish that you have bought in the past year are still in your ponds and they’ve obviously been eating the feed too but aren't included in your harvest data.... maybe you don't have a feed problem at all.

Anyway I don't want to badger you, I guess you have some sort of system that appears to be stable at the moment and you're enjoying the farming which is the main thing. Maybe you now see the necessity of having a production plan and keeping very accurate production records to stay on top of this kind of intensive system.

Production cost from one of the thai-made extruders for 30% CP is around 11 baht/kg. Nice saving if you can spare the time to run the machine and source good quality materials.

Bina, regarding post-mortem it's possible but they prefer to get a live sick fish for testing. No idea about market prices in Korat; provincial fish market price bulletins are something that Thai freshwater farmers have been requesting for years, some provincial fisheries officers are well informed others have no idea. There are wholesale market prices from the main Central fish markets available online but i cant find the link at the moment and the information is pretty poor. The best sources of price information are fish traders and feed companies and their agents. Part of the problem is the relative value of the products, shrimp is another matter and the authorities are very well informed and provide a lot of support to farmers. We are starting to see an improvement in official motivation as they are waking up to the export potential of tilapia and pangasius which are booming in US and EU markets.

About getting all the fish from a pond you either drain it or poison it with rotenone, pla chon and some other smart fish including tilapia will hide in the mud to escape the net. Electrofishing is good but not perfect as it tends to be more effective for big fish. Regular draining, drying and liming is a good practice to keep parasites and other disease at bay.

[Somtham]

Production cost from one of the thai-made extruders for 30% CP is around 11 baht/kg. Nice saving if you can spare the time to run the machine and source good quality materials.

Macan - B11/kg is very attractive. I've been figuring it would cost B14.75/kg. Do you have a recipe for the 30% protein feed and costs per raw material that you can share?

rgds

[macan]

Production cost from one of the thai-made extruders for 30% CP is around 11 baht/kg. Nice saving if you can spare the time to run the machine and source good quality materials.

Macan - B11/kg is very attractive. I've been figuring it would cost B14.75/kg. Do you have a recipe for the 30% protein feed and costs per raw material that you can share?

rgds

I got the price from Henning whose details I sent to you; maybe he'll share his recipe. If not then you can develop your own, you'll find a lot of documents on the FAO document repository http://www.fao.org/documents/advanced_s_re...tring=fish+feed The best of these may be the classic Farm Made Aquafeeds.

The DoF research station (though maybe not the provincial fisheries office) in your province should have a booklet with a range of recipes (in Thai).

Heres a list of the 85 english language fish feed books at AIT library in Rangsit.

[macan]

Production cost from one of the thai-made extruders for 30% CP is around 11 baht/kg. Nice saving if you can spare the time to run the machine and source good quality materials.

Macan - B11/kg is very attractive. I've been figuring it would cost B14.75/kg. Do you have a recipe for the 30% protein feed and costs per raw material that you can share?

rgds

I got the price from Henning whose details I sent to you; maybe he'll share his recipe. If not then you can develop your own, you'll find a lot of documents on the FAO document repository http://www.fao.org/documents/advanced_s_re...tring=fish+feed The best of these may be the classic Farm Made Aquafeeds.

The DoF research station (though maybe not the provincial fisheries office) in your province should have a booklet with a range of recipes (in Thai).

Heres a list of the 85 english language fish feed books at AIT library in Rangsit.

Oops, here's the link http://libopac.ait.ac.th/search/dFishes+--...s&1%2C82%2C there is a room at the back of the library where you can arrange to have copyright breached (photocopy shop) for a very low price.

[Somtham]

I got the price from Henning whose details I sent to you; maybe he'll share his recipe. If not then you can develop your own, you'll find a lot of documents on the FAO document repository http://www.fao.org/documents/advanced_s_re...tring=fish+feed The best of these may be the classic Farm Made Aquafeeds.

The DoF research station (though maybe not the provincial fisheries office) in your province should have a booklet with a range of recipes (in Thai).

Heres a list of the 85 english language fish feed books at AIT library in Rangsit.

Thanks Macan. I have a hard copy of the FAO farm made Aquafeeds and have used their catfish recipe in the past. I also called your buddy in Buriram today and had a good discussion with him. He's using a Least Cost Method software program to get the B11 which includes labor and electricity. He has quite an operation there and we'll be paying him a visit soon. I'll check out the AIT recipes also. Thanks

Rgds

[Tilapia]

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.

If you do Tilapia in open ponds, then be carefull with the stocking density, the oxygen level will be very low during the night time, so the fish will most likely be gasping for air at the surface in the morning. When you buy the fry, make sure you get mono-sex (male) if you get mixed sex the fish will not grow big, the will reproduce all the time, and you really dont want that.

Tilapia.