Fish Feed - Good Brand And Price

[Smithson]

We've just put 60 Pla Nin in our pond, so I'd like to get a decent size sack of fish food. Can anyone recommend a brand and rough price?

Thanks!

[ozzydom]

We've just put 60 Pla Nin in our pond, so I'd like to get a decent size sack of fish food. Can anyone recommend a brand and rough price?

Thanks!

Most brand names are probably ok,(although we have to take their word on protein content) .We find that the darker colour pellet are more to the fish es liking,(they turn their noses up at some of the pale pellets).

You will have to buy pellets commensurate with the size of your fish, we have better success using 30% protein catfish food. In small lots they will run you to about 25-30baht a kg .

Depending on the size of your stock you will only need a couple of handfuls a day and pellets have a limited shelf life so dont over purchase.

[IsaanAussie]

We've just put 60 Pla Nin in our pond, so I'd like to get a decent size sack of fish food. Can anyone recommend a brand and rough price?

Thanks!

Pla Nin are plant eaters. if you have a source of rice bran (Ram) and a pond full of duck weed you can make your own feed. 50-50 mix by volume. Another option is to feed the plant life and let the fish look after themselves, ie. feed animal manures to the pond. Currently Ram costs about 10 Baht per kilo near us.

Help to send your more information if needed. PM me if you like.

Isaanaussie

[ozzydom]

We've just put 60 Pla Nin in our pond, so I'd like to get a decent size sack of fish food. Can anyone recommend a brand and rough price?

Thanks!

Pla Nin are plant eaters. if you have a source of rice bran (Ram) and a pond full of duck weed you can make your own feed. 50-50 mix by volume. Another option is to feed the plant life and let the fish look after themselves, ie. feed animal manures to the pond. Currently Ram costs about 10 Baht per kilo near us.

Help to send your more information if needed. PM me if you like.

Isaanaussie

Pla Nin are omnivorous with a preference for aquatic animal life , they are also screen feeders which makes them ideally suited to separate micro-organisms and phytoplankton as they take in the water and expell it through their gills, retaining the food.

The tiny duck weed is a great source of protein (up to 40 %) but should be thoroughly dried (read dead) before introducing it as food ,as if it gets loose in a pond its reproduction rate is so high that it will soon cover the surface ,cutting out light and creating many problems.

Proviso to this is that if your fish are in fine mesh hapa,s to confine the duckweed or you provide floating feeding areas to confine it also.

Ram is ok if you have a cheap source (4-5 baht kg max) but can also create problems through water souring .Fish feeding is all about protein content for your bucks and ram at 10 baht kg ,because of its low protein content (max 9%) is more expensive than paying 20 baht kg. for propriety pellets of about 22% protein .

As Isaanaussie suggests,greening you pond water by the addition of Phosphorus ( P ) in the form of animal manure or preferably 16/20/0 fertilizer will provide the conditions for micro-organisms and phytoplankton to flourish as food for your Pla Nin.

Then only a small amount ( if any ) supplimentary feeding is required for good growth.

We now use chemical fertilizer as our Phosphorus source as the P is available very quickly and quantities can be managed to prevent dangerous algae blooms.

[IsaanAussie]

We've just put 60 Pla Nin in our pond, so I'd like to get a decent size sack of fish food. Can anyone recommend a brand and rough price?

Thanks!

Pla Nin are plant eaters. if you have a source of rice bran (Ram) and a pond full of duck weed you can make your own feed. 50-50 mix by volume. Another option is to feed the plant life and let the fish look after themselves, ie. feed animal manures to the pond. Currently Ram costs about 10 Baht per kilo near us.

Help to send your more information if needed. PM me if you like.

Isaanaussie

Pla Nin are omnivorous with a preference for aquatic animal life , they are also screen feeders which makes them ideally suited to separate micro-organisms and phytoplankton as they take in the water and expell it through their gills, retaining the food.

The tiny duck weed is a great source of protein (up to 40 %) but should be thoroughly dried (read dead) before introducing it as food ,as if it gets loose in a pond its reproduction rate is so high that it will soon cover the surface ,cutting out light and creating many problems.

Proviso to this is that if your fish are in fine mesh hapa,s to confine the duckweed or you provide floating feeding areas to confine it also.

Ram is ok if you have a cheap source (4-5 baht kg max) but can also create problems through water souring .Fish feeding is all about protein content for your bucks and ram at 10 baht kg ,because of its low protein content (max 9%) is more expensive than paying 20 baht kg. for propriety pellets of about 22% protein .

As Isaanaussie suggests,greening you pond water by the addition of Phosphorus ( P ) in the form of animal manure or preferably 16/20/0 fertilizer will provide the conditions for micro-organisms and phytoplankton to flourish as food for your Pla Nin.

Then only a small amount ( if any ) supplimentary feeding is required for good growth.

We now use chemical fertilizer as our Phosphorus source as the P is available very quickly and quantities can be managed to prevent dangerous algae blooms.

Just for interest, and to invite comment, I offer the following:

Yesterday the wife and I visited a Thai friend who has a shrimp and fish farm. He sells his wares at a roadside stall and has an angling and barbarque area as well.

I asked him what he feeds Pla Nin, (which in anticipation of responses are very healthy, great to eat and grow as quickly as I have seen) and his answer was "Nothing". His ponds are a healthy green colour with no floating plant life.

So what's the point I am trying to make? Are we farangs with all our scientific protein and PH considerations, taking this a bit far? The friends theory is to balance the fish stock so that carnevours and omnivours all do what they do naturally, fry and fingerlings are cheap and his only occassional input.

Interested in everyone's views

Isaanaussie

[ozzydom]

Your friend is right on the money with his culture techniques ,the water color indicates that he has a healthy population of phytoplankton and micro-organisms which are natural feed for his Pla Nin.

Using that method there is probably only about one months difference in Pla Nin gaining the same weight as those receiving supplemental feed as well.

We give some feed as we tend to overstock and as our market likes fish at about 400-500 gram we cut back the feed when we attain that weight.

Feedback is that fish grown this way on mainly natural food are sweeter and have higher oil content than the commercial river grown fish fed solely on pellet.

Our biggest pond is my "collectors corner" where I put a few mixed sex Pla Nin to provide food for a Giant Snakehead (now 14 kg) and some Barramundi we are trying to grow with Pla Nin.

The Barra,s are supposed to initially have a growth rate similar to Pla Nin,but ours are performing far better than expectations, having attained about 1.4 kg in 9 months.

[IsaanAussie]

...... some Barramundi we are trying to grow with Pla Nin.

The Barra,s are supposed to initially have a growth rate similar to Pla Nin,but ours are performing far better than expectations, having attained about 1.4 kg in 9 months.

Now you have my undevided attention.

I have heard of Barra being grown here in brackish waters near the coast, but never actually seen any. Very interested in where they came from and what conditions they are thriving in. Tell me more, please.

Isaanaussie

[ozzydom]

We originally put some in two ponds with Pla Nin, in one pond that flooded and overflowed last year we lost the lot,whether they did a runner or ended up dinner for the many Snakeheads that got in that pond we are uncertain.

In the biggest pond we have ,they are doing well, our conditions are similar to what you saw at your friends farm,ie. green water.

As we were unsure about growing them on to fingerlings in our floating nursery pens as we do Pla Nin ,we just let them loose as fry.

We get all our stock including Barra,s from Nam Sai Farms at Prachinburi, they have a very informative website if you want to take a look.

Nam Sai train their Barra fry to take surface food before sale but as we use their high protein nursery powder as starter feed we could not use it in the open pond environment so they were left to their own devices.

Our ponds have good stocks of the little river prawns as well as millions of a little fish that the Fisheries call a Taiwan fish, its about the same size as a guppy and is a live bearer, we think it came originally with our Pla Nin stock as nobody has seen it around here before.

T/W catches 10 kg at a time and they mix it with herbs and put a handful in banana leaf and slow cook over a low fire,the Thais love them.. plus we often see the Barra go chopping through them gulping them up.

If the Barra experiment keeps tracking ok ,I might dedicate a full pond to them, they sell for double what Pla Nin brings which is to much for villagers ,so I have to establish a separate market or grow them on and use that pond for sports fishing as many locals have asked for.