Self Sufficiency With Less Than 1 Rai

[grimleybob]

That would be me

฿3'800 is the price in Chiang Rai Krup...

You could try places that sells water storage tank in you area.

Thanks RBH I've just spent 25 mins looking and you pipped me to the Post

Bob

PS What do you reckon the the food cost is for growing 1000 kilo of cat fish. Would 150days be about right

Hi Bob,

We always count by the number of fries instate of by kilo, I always emphasize that PVC tank or concrete tank culture is different from earthen pond...differential in water level, water temperature and bedding material.

With a 24/7 water circulation system in a tank culture, 1000 fries size 3''-4'' inches takes about 8 - 8.5 sacks of pellet feed to reach marketable size of 5,6,7 fishes/kg between 110-120 days is achievable.

Thanks for info

How much are Betagro charging at the moment per bag.

Are your catfish "pla chon"

If not , is there any difference in the sale price

Still got a lot to learn----Bob

[RedBullHorn]

Anytime time Bob,

No, catfish is "Pla Duk", there's two spices, Big Oui or Lat Sia.

Snakehead fish is "Pla Chon"

As for the price of feed, you will have to check your local supplier's price as prices vary from

province to province due to transportable charge.

Edited February 10, 2011 by RedBullHorn

[grimleybob]

Anytime time Bob,

No, catfish is "Pla Duk", there's two spices, Big Oui or Lat Sia.

Snakehead fish is "Pla Chon"

As for the price of feed, you will have to check your local supplier's price as prices vary from

province to province due to transportable charge.

In issan pla chon sell at a higher price tha pla duc . Are they harder to farm? Do you have any knowledge of this?

Using some of your figures, and some of my own data 4 X 3m tanks 1.2 meters deep (7.5 cu m per tank) would yield 500kilo of fish, every month after the first 120 days.

Having monthly harvests would give us a better chance of retailing the fish.

When you stock with fingerlings, what sort of mortality would you expect 20%? or less

Bob

[RedBullHorn]

Mortality rate varies...it was 5-35% when i first started, now it is 0.002%

Many reason behide it...unprepared pond, water's PH and inflammatory of fingerlings during grading and long haul journey ect ect...

For new concrete tank, tank has to be treated with full water level and chopped banana trunks to get rid of cement sendiments and toxic 5-7 days prior to release of fingerlings. The first meal, feed should be treated with anti-Bac, anti- Biotic and vitamin C.

[billd766]

Ah Chiang Rai for the water tank.

That's about 5 or 600 km away from me and I have looked locally to find a small tank without much luck so I suspect that I will build a concrete one.

I will hopefully do this as a hobby rather than a business and see what happens which is one reason to be small and cheap.

However if nobody minds I will pick your brains every so often.

Cheers

Bill

[RedBullHorn]

When you said hobby, i hope you know how to get rid of them when the time comes

I have many villagers practically begging me for help to look for wholesalers with a hobby concrete pond of 2'000 catfishes

[mkawish]

Ah Chiang Rai for the water tank.

That's about 5 or 600 km away from me and I have looked locally to find a small tank without much luck so I suspect that I will build a concrete one.

I will hopefully do this as a hobby rather than a business and see what happens which is one reason to be small and cheap.

However if nobody minds I will pick your brains every so often.

Cheers

Bill

I guess using fiberglass would be too expensive for your purpose....?

[billd766]

Ah Chiang Rai for the water tank.

That's about 5 or 600 km away from me and I have looked locally to find a small tank without much luck so I suspect that I will build a concrete one.

I will hopefully do this as a hobby rather than a business and see what happens which is one reason to be small and cheap.

However if nobody minds I will pick your brains every so often.

Cheers

Bill

I guess using fiberglass would be too expensive for your purpose....?

Not so much expensive for the tank but by the time I have gone around a few places getting nowhere the costs tend to stack up compared with knocking up a small system from concrete blocks about 1.5 x 1.2 x 0.6 metres on a 2 x 1.5 slab 5 cm thick.

As it will only be a hobby plus a way of getting fresh fish in small numbers for the family and fresh salad stuff as well I really don't want to lash out too much money where I don't need to.

The land we are on is on a slope and less than a metre or so down is rock which is why I thought of rebuilding the sala anyway, putting the growbeds onto the sala and the fish pond at ground level.

The problem with growing large amounts of fish and veges is selling them on a daily or so basis. 20 fish a week is not too hard to get rid off but 50 or 100 a day means trying to find a buyer before you start and getting a price to cover costs and make a small profit.

Up here nobody is really interested in paying extra for pesticide free veges as they don't have the money for it and as for selling larger quantities of fish, well that maybe easier as we have a daily market plus 3 weekly market days.

Last Wednesday I bought 2 carrots, 20 baht, 2 cabbages, 20 baht, lettuce 10 baht.

How can I compete commercially with prices like that bearing in mind they were mostly sold by local ladies?

KISSIE

Keep

It

Simple

Simple

Is

Easy

sala drawing.xls

Edited February 12, 2011 by billd766

[billd766]

When you said hobby, i hope you know how to get rid of them when the time comes

I have many villagers practically begging me for help to look for wholesalers with a hobby concrete pond of 2'000 catfishes

Hopefully I will only be running 30 or so fish at one time just for a hobby otherwise I will have to sell or give them away

[grimleybob]

When you said hobby, i hope you know how to get rid of them when the time comes

I have many villagers practically begging me for help to look for wholesalers with a hobby concrete pond of 2'000 catfishes

Hopefully I will only be running 30 or so fish at one time just for a hobby otherwise I will have to sell or give them away

If you onlly want fresh fish for the family it would be better to have them throughout the year and not just in batches 2-3 times per year.

to achieve this you need 4 small tanks in line, each one higher than the last. First month stock the highest pond, 2nd month move fish down and restock top tank. Repeat untill 4 tanks stocked by this time you can harvest first fish. By doing this you will have fresh fish 12months of the year.Circulate and filter the same way that you planned before, gravity will take the water from tank to tank.

[billd766]

When you said hobby, i hope you know how to get rid of them when the time comes

I have many villagers practically begging me for help to look for wholesalers with a hobby concrete pond of 2'000 catfishes

Hopefully I will only be running 30 or so fish at one time just for a hobby otherwise I will have to sell or give them away

If you only want fresh fish for the family it would be better to have them throughout the year and not just in batches 2-3 times per year.

to achieve this you need 4 small tanks in line, each one higher than the last. First month stock the highest pond, 2nd month move fish down and restock top tank. Repeat until 4 tanks stocked by this time you can harvest first fish. By doing this you will have fresh fish 12months of the year.Circulate and filter the same way that you planned before, gravity will take the water from tank to tank.

Now that is a good idea and one I hadn't thought about.

I suppose I could make all the tanks about the same size in a line and put a drainpipe between at slightly different heights.

Pump from the last tank and drain into the first tank and it should cascade down. I will think about that one.

[rice555]

Hello All, I looked at this brand of tank to get for my hydro nutes, the advantage over the regular BLUE tanks is the tank top is the cover and comes off unlike the manhole cover of the BLUE tanks.

They have a 2" threaded outlet fitting, not as cheap as the BLUE tanks, I think these are fiber glass.

They are made in the N.E.

The 1,000Lt. was Bt3,530.

rice555

[billd766]

Hello All, I looked at this brand of tank to get for my hydro nutes, the advantage over the regular BLUE tanks is the tank top is the cover and comes off unlike the manhole cover of the BLUE tanks.

They have a 2" threaded outlet fitting, not as cheap as the BLUE tanks, I think these are fiber glass.

They are made in the N.E.

The 1,000Lt. was Bt3,530.

rice555

Can I ask which town you bought it in and what is the physical size?

I live in central Thailand 65 km southwest of Khampaeng Phet.

[rice555]

Hello build766, I went to buy one of the black tanks over a year ago and what they were showing, they wouldn't sell, I ended up with a 2K Lt. blue tank.

This store is DoHome, it's a big store here in Korat, they have a smaller store in Ubon, Ubonwatsadu.

I don't know if this is any good: www.ubonwatsadu.co.th

If you would have posted this by noon, I could have checked and tried to get a spec sheet, I had to go back for some parts. I did take a (poor) picture of the top lifted up while there.

And another shot from yesterday of the same tank. You can see the base size is that of a shipping pallet, and my guess from lifting up the top that the tank is about 5'(+or- 4") for a rough guess.

Also, the tank to the L. you can see the drain fitting at the bottom/side(threaded-brass insert).

If you want more info, I'll be going back wed., need 100M of 1" LDPE.

The tanks on the rack outside run from 500L to 2,500L. The lids are plastic.

rice555

[billd766]

Hi Rice

I have an old sala out by my (bone dry) fish pond and I am thinking of rebuilding it and putting my grow beds on the platform and building a concrete slab and brick fishpond divided into 4 x 250 litre sections.

As it will be a hobby unless I can make it pay, I am only planning to put about 50 fish per section per month, enough to give the family 12 fish a week all year round plus veggies.

My feed beds I think will be plastic boxes from Makro and 6 of them will come to about 900 litres.

I think the tank you have will be too big for me in the beginning so I will probably build the concrete one.

I am also looking for a reasonably slow pump to run 24/7 that won't be too expensive to run and I think I may have found one.

The main problem where I live is that usually around this month the normal government water supply runs out and is sometimes off for a couple of months. so I am sort of planning to do the building work later in the year and start the actual aquaponics in about 6 months when the water will be plentiful and I can spend the time to get it right.

I have attached a couple of Excel files with my thoughts so far.

Aquaponics building costs.xls

sala drawing.xls

LuckyPro Submersible pumps SP100F.doc

[RedBullHorn]

.....................

[grimleybob]

.....................

You'r too clever for me -----gimmee a clue????

GB

[RedBullHorn]

.

Edited March 2, 2011 by RedBullHorn

[billd766]

Now I am confused too.

[rice555]

Hello All, was unable to get a spec sheet, but I did get size/prices and I need glasses.

From the pic. today, top row R/H to L/H side.

4,000L-B.10,250. 3,000L-B.8,348. 2,500L-B.6,583. How I'm not sure which one is

which in the pic's, but the 2,000L-B.6,677. 1,500L-B.4,437. And you already Have

the 1,000L price.

I did some more reading on AP, some of it 3-4 years old, but still, this is from a OZ hydro

magazine, but I'm looking from the hydro side of things.

http://www.hydroponics.com.au/free-articles/issue-83-aquaponics-simplified/

http://www.hydroponics.com.au/free-articles/issue-101-aquaponics-revisited/

http://www.hydroponics.com.au/free-articles/issue103-sustainable-aquaponics/

The UVI and UofA projects are way beyond the scope of 1-rai setup, and really can't be

scaled down. The site I read last night:

http://www.arizonapreppersnetwork.com/2011/02/aquaponics-101-discussions-on-apn.html

think this was the right link, had a 5 part how-to on AP, a very good read on the system(s)

they have, and are very pro 'hydrotron' in their multi grow bed system(s).

So, so far I read that for the first 6-18 months till the bio-filter is 'fully operational' greens are

it, no fruit.

The 5-part article is a very good info on how to set up and start the system going before there's

fish or plants in the system.

http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/extension/Classroom/Aquaponics.htm

http://azaquaponics.com/

http://www.fishfarmacy.com/projects/aquaponics-greenhouse.php

rice555

[billd766]

Hi Rice

Thank you for the update on prices and also the links.

I still think that for me making a concrete tank split into 4 x 250 litres is the easiest way to go as I am only looking as a hobby and fresh food for the family at this stage.

Also any mistakes I do make will not be too expensive to rectify and learn from.

If it works well then in the future I can expand but I always have to remember that here a little later in the year will probably come the drought which will limit the amount of water I have available.

[rice555]

Hello All, this picture(between the white sign posts) shows some of the swimming pool type

tanks. The larger one is white inside/blue outside. The smaller tank is one color. don't know

any more info on them, but any place that sales this type of products should have some info

available. Again, TIT!

Sorry for the bad picture, it's a phone, and I'm in the back of a songtao that's trying to cut

across 2 lanes to make a R. at the next corner.

rice555

[grimleybob]

Hello All, this picture(between the white sign posts) shows some of the swimming pool type

tanks. The larger one is white inside/blue outside. The smaller tank is one color. don't know

any more info on them, but any place that sales this type of products should have some info

available. Again, TIT!

Sorry for the bad picture, it's a phone, and I'm in the back of a songtao that's trying to cut

across 2 lanes to make a R. at the next corner.

rice555

Looks interesting. If you call to ask prices ask if they can make/order other sizes, up to 4m diameter x 1m deep

Bob.