Sustainable Fish Food

[SpeedTriple]

Hi all,

Was wondering if any of you guys have had experience of growing Duckweed and/or BSF (Black Soldier Fly) Larvae for fish food suplements in Thailand.

I'm coming back to Prasat (hopefully for good this time) in Feb 2010 and want to setup a vermiculture (both for black gold and worms for fish feed) and an aquaponics system.

I've read about the biopod and looked at various DIY attemps to harvest these maggots/หนอน/larvae, but can find no info about whether they are indigenous to Thailand.

Also read about Duckweed and Moringa as very nice food suplements for fish in Thailand, but again, have not been able to source specific information about either.

I read that the Thai word for Moringa is Ma Rom (Ma is often used as a prefix for vegetable like pak) but my GF hasn't heard of it.. any one know the Thai words for Duckweed and or Moringa?

Chok dee na krab.

Rich.

[Pond Life]

We have mainly Pla Nin & Catfish.

They both like to eat Banana's & Guava.

Both can be grown close to the pond & grow quickly & easily.

We wait until the bananas are just going brown & soft, then hang them on a rope in the pond.

They eat it all but the stalk.

The Guava fall to the ground & after a couple of days are full of bugs.

Split them open a bit & throw them in the pond.

[jandtaa]

Hi Rich

this site is a great resource for finding Thai names of plants. There always seem to be regional differences between the names Thais give various plants but this site usually gives more than one. This link is to a page for moringa but if you follow the link at the bottom of the page to "gateway" you will find links to a wealth of plant name databases.

Thai names for moringa

The species of duckweed harvested as food in Northern Thailand is Wolffia globosa (tropical watermeal) and the Thai name for it is "kai nam" or literally water eggs. There is another aquatic plant (also a possible invasive weed) called duckweed fern (more commonly referred to in literature as azolla pinnata) I think the Thai name may be "nae daeng" but not 100% sure, which is used in integrated fish farming (rice/fish/azolla) and as a green manure in the paddy fields and also utilised as an animal feed due to its high protein content and might be worth a google.

Hope this is of some help and make sure you keep us posted with news on your project .

cheers for now J

p.s. I have a PDF on maggot farming somewhere, not sure of the species used but I'll try and dig it out.

[SpeedTriple]

Thanks for the replies.

Pond, the trouble with growing any fruits, is the GF would eat them long before they got anywhere near the pond

It's good to know that Catfish and Bpla Nin eat that kinda stuff tho, I will certainly be starting with catfish.

Jandtaa,

Some great info and links there, ty vm

Cheers for now.

Rich.

[SpeedTriple]

Well I finally quit my job, and move back to Prasat on March 2nd.

Yesterday 27 countries issued travel warnings for Thailand, bloody typical, lol.

Tomorrow is Taksin's hearing, I hope it has all calmed down again by Tuesday.

I am not looking forward to living in Munich airport for a few days if it doesn't.

Good luck all, hope the next few days are peaceful, and we can all get on with our lives.

[Pond Life]

I'm traveling back the same day.

I've got my fingers crossed they dont close the airport again.

Sadly I havnt quit my job yet.

Good luck.

[SpeedTriple]

My trip back was smooth as silk, literally with Thai Airways.

No one shot at me at the airport, which was nice

Have had a very busy couple of weeks, the soil here is very sandy and last year I asked the GF to collect cow droppings and make into a big pile which, suprisingly she did actually do.

I mulched three of her small mango trees with rotted cow manure and grass around the trunk, the change was absolutely unreal, new leaf growth within a few days and now the trees look soooo much better, expecting fruit soon !

I think now she believes me that collecting cow pooh is not just another crazy farrang idea

Am slowly working more manure into the vegetable garden that she planted last year with her mum.

I also built a small aquaponics system, first results seem to be very good, we have not had any rain at all in nearly 3 weeks, I think aquaponics will work here very well, have had very good growth with beans, melons, and pak bung and the system has not even completed the nitrogen cycle yet !

I have found some 2500 litre tanks that are safe for storing drinking water for 7000 baht, I am waiting for Surin Toyota to deliver the new Vigo so I can go pick them up and make a "proper" aquaponics system.

Am pissed of with Surin Toyota, they told me we could get the car this month, and now they are saying it may be end of next month because I want a black one, they never call back, there's always some other problem, blah blah blah, wat tamma tan thai, I guess, but frustrating nonetheless when you spend nearly 1 million baht on a car and as soon as you give them the deposit they stop caring !!

chok dee krab all.

Rich.

I'm traveling back the same day.

I've got my fingers crossed they dont close the airport again.

Sadly I havnt quit my job yet.

Good luck.

[SpeedTriple]

Forgot to say I have sourced some Ma Rum, moringa, planted them 2 days ago, eagerly awaiting their growth.

Also made a home made biopod for black solider fly, but so far only blowfly maggots have appeared, I have read that BSF do live in TL, just need to attract them with the right food stuff, I read that mango fruit and milk are a very good initial attractant for them but have been too busy with other stuff to get around to that yet.

[Foreverford]

Forgot to say I have sourced some Ma Rum, moringa, planted them 2 days ago, eagerly awaiting their growth.

Also made a home made biopod for black solider fly, but so far only blowfly maggots have appeared, I have read that BSF do live in TL, just need to attract them with the right food stuff, I read that mango fruit and milk are a very good initial attractant for them but have been too busy with other stuff to get around to that yet.

Hey trips any updates for us future fish farmers forever

[SpeedTriple]

Forgot to say I have sourced some Ma Rum, moringa, planted them 2 days ago, eagerly awaiting their growth.

Also made a home made biopod for black solider fly, but so far only blowfly maggots have appeared, I have read that BSF do live in TL, just need to attract them with the right food stuff, I read that mango fruit and milk are a very good initial attractant for them but have been too busy with other stuff to get around to that yet.

Hey trips any updates for us future fish farmers forever

Best thing I have found so far is a small low energy bulb over the tank.

In the rainy season it attracts hundreds of thousands of "Maleng Mau" - termites absolutely adamant on killing themselves.

Enormous quantities of free fish food, only useful for Catfish though, Bpla Nin and Tab Tim don't eat them.

Have had no luck in sourcing Duckweed, and the Nins/tab Tims don't appear to like Moringa, at least in raw form.

Maggot growing was really unsucsessful, just too hot I think, they would grow to a few mm's and then die.

If and when the rains finally come, I will try again at growing maggots.

Cheers

[Foreverford]

Forgot to say I have sourced some Ma Rum, moringa, planted them 2 days ago, eagerly awaiting their growth.

Also made a home made biopod for black solider fly, but so far only blowfly maggots have appeared, I have read that BSF do live in TL, just need to attract them with the right food stuff, I read that mango fruit and milk are a very good initial attractant for them but have been too busy with other stuff to get around to that yet.

Hey trips any updates for us future fish farmers forever

Best thing I have found so far is a small low energy bulb over the tank.

In the rainy season it attracts hundreds of thousands of "Maleng Mau" - termites absolutely adamant on killing themselves.

Enormous quantities of free fish food, only useful for Catfish though, Bpla Nin and Tab Tim don't eat them.

Have had no luck in sourcing Duckweed, and the Nins/tab Tims don't appear to like Moringa, at least in raw form.

Maggot growing was really unsucsessful, just too hot I think, they would grow to a few mm's and then die.

If and when the rains finally come, I will try again at growing maggots.

Cheers

I found a good source of crickets near Prachon Chai and am looking to start growing worms and them, we've used the light trick and it is a good free source of food. We need to find some source of plant that can be used for organic feed. It appears, as it is, that catfish will eat anything including bananas and the banana plant also but we need to find some kind of foodstock that we can grow to be able to raise the Nin and Tim organically. thanks for the update and choke dee maggotting

[IsaanAussie]

Forgot to say I have sourced some Ma Rum, moringa, planted them 2 days ago, eagerly awaiting their growth.

Also made a home made biopod for black solider fly, but so far only blowfly maggots have appeared, I have read that BSF do live in TL, just need to attract them with the right food stuff, I read that mango fruit and milk are a very good initial attractant for them but have been too busy with other stuff to get around to that yet.

Hey trips any updates for us future fish farmers forever

Best thing I have found so far is a small low energy bulb over the tank.

In the rainy season it attracts hundreds of thousands of "Maleng Mau" - termites absolutely adamant on killing themselves.

Enormous quantities of free fish food, only useful for Catfish though, Bpla Nin and Tab Tim don't eat them.

Have had no luck in sourcing Duckweed, and the Nins/tab Tims don't appear to like Moringa, at least in raw form.

Maggot growing was really unsucsessful, just too hot I think, they would grow to a few mm's and then die.

If and when the rains finally come, I will try again at growing maggots.

Cheers

I found a good source of crickets near Prachon Chai and am looking to start growing worms and them, we've used the light trick and it is a good free source of food. We need to find some source of plant that can be used for organic feed. It appears, as it is, that catfish will eat anything including bananas and the banana plant also but we need to find some kind of foodstock that we can grow to be able to raise the Nin and Tim organically. thanks for the update and choke dee maggotting

FEF,

Mate, you get any greener and You will start to grow!

I/A

[IsaanAussie]

Anyone had any luck finding black soldier flies? Worms are going well.

If anyone travels near Wat Phi Rong Wua in southern Suphan Buri, visit the wat. Not only does it have the largest sitting bronze buddha in the world, it also has fish ponds absolutely covered in the magic small leaf duckweed. I used to live near the Wat and wish I had scooped up a load before we left, always meant to but never did. Next time down to BKK I will stop in and grab some though.

Isaan Aussie.

[Khonwan]

Hi IsaanAussie

Come over to my place – I’m spending several hours per day just now in my pond (which I use mainly for swimming) scooping out ‘tonnes’ of duckweed (“nae”)!

Rgds

Khonwan

[teletiger]

Are the black soldier flies those long black flies whizzing around my compost heap? I didn't really notice them until I started to use fruit peelings on the pile. Now they're a permanent feature. They like my tea too. I leave a 200 lt blue container open for a couple of days, whilst I'm filling it with peelings.

Regards.

Edit: Just looked them up. Yep that's them. Squillions of maggots here too. Let me know how many Billion you need.