Fish And Shrimp Farm

[David48]

Just three photos to share today taken late last year ... but it's fairly rare to view the pond with no water.

[ray23]

I was wondering about that, people are electrocuted here, very often.

Mud fishing great photos

[David48]

Thanks ray23 for your kind comments above.

I'm sure that you will have some quality photos of your own to display on your thread about the growth cycle of the Pla Lin fish, or Talapa as I describe them.

For those interested in an alternative view do drop by ray23's thread at http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/552142-growth-cycle-of-pla-nin/

[samsiam]

I keep reading this thread as 'fish and chip farm'.....

[David48]

I keep reading this thread as 'fish and chip farm'.....

Ha Ha Ha samsiam, you are correct ... yes two meals Fish and Chips.

[media=]

[/media]

Unfortunately only a limited audience would understand that pun!

EDIT:- Oh ... couldn't find exactly the quote you referred to.

Edited May 16, 2012 by David48

[sirineou]

Great story David, show the link on an other of your posts in General and followed it here, I personally spend most of my time in the “Building” section, and the Isaan section of this forum, with occasional forays in to the general section , where I am mostly meet with frustration. I must say, your interesting story had attracted a new reader to the farming section.

Pretty girl your Gf, any plans to make a honest woman out of her any time soon? Better hurry before some one beats you to the punch. And all the shrimp you can eat! You lucky bastard.

I like the Idea that some one else mentioned of opening a restaurant, (if the location is right) by the pond. There is a similar coong restaurant here in Khon Kaen , nothing special just a hew bamboo huts around the pond, thy deliver the food with bicycles, and they do a brisk business..

Again , Great story, thanks for providing me with an enjoyable morning reading it.

Picture of the Coong place in KKC

Edited May 17, 2012 by sirineou

[Tywais]

Off topic post removed.

[David48]

Off topic post removed.

Thanks Tywais for removing that ...

Why a cat in a metal hat would want to post such derogatory comments about MissFarmGirl is beyond me.

[David48]

So, on a more positive note, here is a small clip from Wednesday night/Thursday morning's Prawn Harvest.

[ray23]

Looks like some good dinner there

[MissFarmGirl]

Our shrimps always good taste

But no let David cook ... he burn water ... ha ha ha

[David48]

Ha ha ha ... thankyou MissFarmGirl for sharing with the world about my culinary abilities

This was the second movie showing the actual prawn catch.

I will try and get, in the future how they lay the nets out etc.

In Thailand, as we all know, patience is a virtue.

[pigeonjake]

hi david and the beautiful miss farm girl,lol,

our farm is mainly pigs, with the pond behind for the run off water when cleaning, we have talapia in it, do you think it would be ok to put some prawns in there too, not for me im alergic to shell fish but it would e good for the family to treat them, and if so were do you buy little praws?? and how much are they?

sorry if you think this is stupid question but i just dont know, we live in the sakoew province wangnamyen,

and that you again, both of you and say thank you to the family, great post, im sat here in scotland working nite shift on a power station, great reading, i do live in thailand, but if someone offers me a good job i go and do it for a couple of months.

thanks again jake

[David48]

^^ Hi there Jake.

Thanks for the kind comments ...

Tilapia and Shrimp cohabitate quite well as essentially they live in different strata of the pond/lake.

They may work OK in your situation if the Pond depth and salinty is suitable.

As for a local supplier, I have little idea except to suggest that where you buy your fingerlings from, ask them about the Prawn Fry because they should know a supplier.

The only time that the Prawns usually need special attention is when they are first introduced to the pond.

The Family do separate them for some time before they are deemed strong enough to 'fend for themselves'.

Because they are bottom feeders they are more susceptible to oxygen depletion then the Fish because the Pond stratifies and explained in detail here.

If you have a high stocking rate of Fish and aerate the Pond around sunrise (when oxygen levels are typically at a nadir) then shouldn’t be a problem.

Of, if your's is just a Hobby and the stocking rate is low ... also not a problem.

From introduction to edible takes three months plus and when you catch them, at least you know they are fresh ...

[David48]

I've been a bit quite here because ray23's thread about the Growth Cycle of Pla Nin has been swimming along nicely, I have some new imagery to share.

Since there was a lot of discussion on ray23's thread about the type of food used to feed the fish ... a great place to start.

Protein not less than 15%, Fat not less than 3%

Under cover, dry storage.

As usual, we did the QnA Format ...

How much does each bag cost?

250 Baht /bag

How many does she buy at a time to get this price?

This time she buy the feed 60 bag. 60 X 250.

What is the protein % of each bag?

Protein not less than 15%, Fat not less than 3%, food ingredeints is fish meal, soybean meal, bran, coconut meal and corn.

They have a additional additive but will talk about that in another thread because it's not usually available but may tweek you to look for it locally in your area.

So an open question to all who follow this thread ...

How does this feed pictured compare what you guys are using?

.

[ray23]

Ok we buy 15.5% at 280 bag with a ten bag purchase. Udon is futrther way the your sweetheart's farm, so fuel cost may have somehting to do with that.

Pond is normally about a 1 & 1/2 meter deep.

Dry ios very important in stroage or the feed will go bad. We keep ours in out storage house at home and take to the farm a we need it.

We will get our shrimp from local fishery this month, that have said a word about protecting them. But, the fact is we do things very differently then most Thai fish farms in the area. There method is put them in the water catch them and sale them.

We have 0-2, 24/7 with low voltage pumps, last month the electricity was free, we were under the minimun.

We rely heavly on Dom's green pond method since that has 50% protein, began recently adding LOM to the mix which is about 10% protein. Fish are fed twice a day three kilos per day.

How do they prtect the shrimp when they first put them in water?

[ozzydom]

The pictured food is a CP product, after the floods it was the only feed available as the other manufacturers were inundated with water.

Food with a lower protein content than 20% is regarded by most authoritive bodies as a waste of money for Tilapia.

30 % protein is 440 baht a bag so feeding the same amount once a day is cheaper and they are getting a food they can better utilize.

http://www.fao.org/fishery/culturedspecies/Oreochromis_niloticus/en

This site is an excellent read for those interested in Tilapia.

Note that good results are obtained by only ensuring a permanent surface algael bloom

by the use of animal waste or Phosphate fertiliser and no other feeding.

[ozzydom]

Ray, Once you put prawn fry in with advanced Tilapia their fate is a lottery.

In an ideal world you would place your prawns in the pond about a month before introducing your Tilapia fry but owing to the seasonal availability of prawn fry this is extremely hard.

I put 12000 prawns in one of the ponds 2 weeks ago ,if I can harvest 5-6 kg of good sized prawns for the bbq when the pond is pumped later in the year I will consider it a fair result.

[ray23]

I'm just going to try a 1,000 first and see how it works out. So if I have a loss it won't be a big one.

[David48]

I'm just going to try a 1,000 first and see how it works out. So if I have a loss it won't be a big one.

ray23, mate ... good luck with that.

How do you plan to harvest them?

When do you plan to harvest them?

When the lassies' parents first introduce them to the pond environment they keep them in a separate pond to get use to the salinity etc and feed them directly ... then directly release them into the pond.

I'll ask MissFarmGirl about what food they feed them and reply here.

[David48]

... the type of food used to feed the fish ..

Here is the website which describes the Fish Food used.

It's all in Thai, but I assume that if you are Fish Farming, then you own/rent land ... therefore have a Thai partner ...

[David48]

<snip>

I put 12000 prawns in one of the ponds 2 weeks ago ,if I can harvest 5-6 kg of good sized prawns for the bbq when the pond is pumped later in the year I will consider it a fair result.

ozzydom, I did some 'back of the beer coster' calculations.

This Farm works on about, for small size shrimp, about 130 per Kilo.

So, even at an 80% mortality rate combined with the harvest efficiencies you might get 20 kilos plus.

The Party could be with you ...

With the Prawns, you put into the Pond ... did you seperate and feed them for an initial period ... or straight into pond and wished them good luck?

[ray23]

What I'm trying to find out is how to introduce them to the pond, safely.

I plan on using traps, they will be for pesonal consumption. We are talking fresh water shrimp, so I'm not worried about salinity.

The proper things to do with prawn you would realistically yuo would need at least some salt water supply.

Talapia though are interesting creatures, they can grow in salt water, or fresh water.

[Jotham79]

Has anyone tried raising freshwater prawns in the blue sceen/net hapas? Somewhere the wife got ahold of 10,000 and is trying to raise them in the nets. She made money off of pla duk and then pla nin and decided to go big on the prawns.

[ozzydom]

Hi David,The pond I put them in is about 120 metres long and has a bit of vegetation in each end so I dumped half each end and wished them well.

Of course there are 2500x 300g Tilapia to keep them company.The prawn are minute and the extension officer said 50% mortality is normal plus they are so small I dont think the blue mesh would retain them.

I visited a freshwater prawn farm near Kalasin a few years ago when I was contemplating the industry,this particular farm put in 1 million small prawns into a holding pond and let them go through a few moults then just netted what he needed to restock ponds.

At 150 baht for each bag of 1100 its not going to break the bank.

I had problem seeing them even with my reading glasses so I dont know how they count out the 1100.

If I get any survivors and they grow OK I may dedicate a pond to them next year.( when you get to my ripe old age it helps to have long term goals)

[ray23]

Has anyone tried raising freshwater prawns in the blue sceen/net hapas? Somewhere the wife got ahold of 10,000 and is trying to raise them in the nets. She made money off of pla duk and then pla nin and decided to go big on the prawns.

Where did she locate the fresh water Prawns?

Do they require salty water?

Alll we have here in Udon is fresh water shrimp.

Blue netting I wa thinking of that not sure it will work or not. But I have a lot of it

[Jotham79]

I'm not sure where the baby prawns came from. Someone she knew (and she knows everyone) knew we raise fish and asked if we wanted the baby prawns. I'm out of the country so I didn't know anything until she told me they were on the farm. If I remember, they were 1.5 baht each and were over a cm long. I'll check 2 nite and see if can get more info. My farm is outside Phetchabun city so they couldn't have come from too far away and they are in big trouble if they aren't fresh water.

[ray23]

I'm not sure where the baby prawns came from. Someone she knew (and she knows everyone) knew we raise fish and asked if we wanted the baby prawns. I'm out of the country so I didn't know anything until she told me they were on the farm. If I remember, they were 1.5 baht each and were over a cm long. I'll check 2 nite and see if can get more info. My farm is outside Phetchabun city so they couldn't have come from too far away and they are in big trouble if they aren't fresh water.

Thanks I appreciate it.

[Jotham79]

OK, I talked to the missus and I don't want to know where the baby prawns came from. I had completely forgotten why I stopped asking questions. Anyway, when she bought them they were very small (1 cm max) but you could tell they were prawns. And she paid 2500 baht (she thinks) which probably means I don't want to know that either. I'll post when this is all over and report on how this production went.

[ronz28]

Interesting thread. I live in Central Texas and a lot of the shrimp sold in the grocery stores here is from Thailand and the Gulf Coast of Texas. I suspect the Thai shrimp exported to the US is Gulf of Siam or Andaman Sea caught or farmed to get such large quantities for export but I guess it could be fresh water raised. It sells for about US$7-8 a pound here.

Thai shrimp looks and tastes good but I have concerns with pollution in Thailand and probably don't buy as much as I want to because of those concerns. I certainly don't buy fish or shrimp from Japan and China based on radiation & pollution concerns, but they are on sale everywhere here.