Fish Farms 201

[David48]

There is a large amount of collective knowledge of Fish Farms to review.

• my-catfish-farm-operation RedBullHorn

• river-fish-farm lovelaos

• setting-up-ponds-for-farming-pla-nin ozzydom

(natural feeding method)

• growth-cycle-of-pla-nin Ray23

• fish-and-shrimp-farm MissFarmGirl

(tradition Thai method)

If there becomes more, or you can add to this collective knowledge, please post below.

[lipupfatty]

Thanks for that David,very helpful.

[ray23]

I have an interesting situation, since I have spring feedinh my pond I don't pump it out. So adding new fish ( Talalpia ) becomes a problem. I made up some floating nets, big guys got in anyway and ate the fry.

Th net frames are made with PVC, which tends to break up at the joints. I'm trying to reenforce them. One by running wire and pulling the joints together. Then I think I will run a solid piece of PVC along the main sections.

I know the floats we used were not large enough and didn't keep the nets far enough out of the water. So some ideas would be appreciated.

Upon inspection of one net. I founmd a hole just big enough for the big fish to ge in. There were three large fish in the net. The hole wasn't there when we put it in the water. These are the fine mesh nets. Since we are trying to keep the fry in till thye are big enough to release. I think we lost a 1,000 fry. Fortunately we found the problem before we had fed them a ton of food.

Did the net get smagged on something. or did th fish eat throuhg it?

I have no idea.

[jayci]

Great thread. Needs to be pinned

[jayci]

From the nam sai farms website, very informative material.

Manual English.doc

[RedBullHorn]

Food for thought...

1. How long have you been here? If less than a year, you should consider staying for up to 2 years full time to see if you could fully adapt and to observe the way of life, charaters and personalities of the people you're going to live with.

2. If you're investing, you'll need to be here hands-on full time with or without hired farmhands, it is not a considerably wise move to leave it with the wife, in-laws, etc... Because work need to be done right and done diligently and according to many feedback by PM from members here, things always turn out wrong or went south when they're not around most of the time or the in-law are not serious about the whole investment (not their money) and can't be bother with schedules. How about yourself, are you ready to do the learning curve? It take about 2 years to learn the skill of this trade and you may not get paid during the trial and error stage.

3. Lets talk about fish farming, do you have a pond yet? if no, can the intended pond site for excavation holds water (soil type) or have sufficient water year round... or do you have to fight for your share of water when the villagers of neighbouring fields full of paddy are tightening their grip by blocking the stream and diverting the flow of water into their cash crops?

4. You need to find out which supplier is reliable for fingerling stock, about feed grade, about rearing seasons, about market volatility, about supply and demand, about farmgate prices, about harvesting, about pond clearing. And before all this, there's also knowledge about soil conditions, water conditions, PH level, remedies, effective water depth, effective pond designs and construction, weather/climate, pathogens, diseases and controls, temperatures and anaerobic cycle, pond maintenance...

5. Manpower...who will be working, who will be guarding ? In my case, daytime i work my farm, at night i live in the farmhouse by the ponds, literally beside the ponds, my dogs guard them at night while i sleep inside my quarter, they barks and I'll need to wake up to check, no point to hire a guard who sleep through the night and not caring even if something bad is going on like fish theft. (get paid to sleep? at ฿2'000 he think so absolutely !)

6. Volume counts ! You will not be able to survive doing 10'000 or 20'000 or even 50'000 fishes per cycle let alone year round. I can't even survive farming 100'000 fishes/cycle. Currently I'm doing 535'000 fishes/cycle, ROI is roughly ฿1.6 mil/year (3 cycles). Initial capital is ฿3.8mil... or about ฿70'000 investment [2013] for fingerlings and grade 'A' feed for per 10'000 fishes and the return profit is between ฿0.70-฿1 for newly start out/amateur fish farmers. So truthfully you will not be able to survive if investing with small capital, investing BIG is a risk for newbies. To solve this problem/problems, you will need to have a backup monetary saving or supplementary income that will help to keep you survive for 2 years. A pro/skill farmer makes between ฿1.3-฿2 per fish.

7. Lastly... be firm, be humble, be nice, be polite and be kind to villagers. Keep you nose clean and stay under the radar (low profile). There will be people who like you and people who hate you (out of envy or jealousy). You do not want the worse thing that could happen to your live stock - Sabotage.

Happy farming and cheers

Edited March 4, 2013 by RedBullHorn

[ray23]

Solved my problem bigger floats.

Good advice the learning curve is expensive. Be ready for it it would be very rare to see a profit in the first year. QWe are on target for that. But, it because of the mush rooms.

Anyone know anything about Pla Mor, like what is the English name of the fish?

I do have soem help at our place. But, yuo canl;t walk away adn expect he samwe results. defintely a hands on operation.

[impulse]

Question out of the blue...

Are there reasonable sources of fingerlings for exotics like peacock bass, American largemouth bass, American sunfish, etc? Just looking for a few hundred dollars worth to do some stocking in a pond near my apartment.

[David48]

Food for thought...

5. Manpower...who will be working, who will be guarding ? In my case, daytime i work my farm, at night i live in the farmhouse by the ponds, literally beside the ponds, my dogs guard them at night while i sleep inside my quarter, they barks and I'll need to wake up to check, no point to hire a guard who sleep through the night and not caring even if something bad is going on like fish theft. (get paid to sleep? at ฿2'000 he think so absolutely !)

Happy farming and cheers

An excellent post above RedBullHorn ... some real home truths.

I sat here reading and nodding to almost every point you make.

Just so some of the readers do understand some of the finer points ... I like to comment on #5 above.

The gf's father and his brother who also runs a Fish Farm ... both sleep in a sleep out between the ponds.

Both have a collection of dogs ... who jealously guard the Farm.

RBH ... may I ask ... what time do you rise to check and adjust the oxygen levels in the ponds (if required)?

Fish Farms are not all doom and gloom ... it's very rewarding if it all goes right ... good profit and a real sense of satisfaction with a good catch.

.

[RedBullHorn]

David, i never have to rise and check the DO (Dissolve Oxygen) farming catfish all this years, Clarias have another seperate set of organ for breathing air for use when crawling on land (as long as their skin is moist, they can tolerate very long when they're out of the pond).

Never had problem with DO and no need for aeration. I only have to take care of water quality, change half the pond water when necessary. Ususally twice per pond per farming cycle for hot season and cold season, elevated run-through 24/7 during Monsoon season by adjusting inlet and outlet bend pipes level.

ray23, Pla Mor farmgate price is ฿70/kg. Small market, usually farm and harvest by method of combing the pond with bigger mesh size seining net for bigger marketable size fish and continue rearing the smaller size untill it reaches the desirable size of the previous harvest.

Rotate between 2 or 3 ponds per year, rearing period between 3-4 months like catfish but percentage of desirable palm size is about 40% the rest is 3 fingers or four fingers size, although there's market for all sizes, but most farmers prefered to keep them untill they grow to the desirsable palm size, so rotating between ponds ensure the supply and business.

Edited March 4, 2013 by RedBullHorn

[jayci]

What is the recommended stocking density per cubic metre for the claris catfish In a 3m3 tank setup.

[RedBullHorn]

Order: Perciformes

Family: Anabantidae

Species: Anabas testudineus

Status: native

FB names (fishbase.org) /Common names: Climbing perch, Climbing gourami

Thai name: Pla Mor Thai

Freshwater fish of thailand

Wikipedia

I was into it then 2 years ago because of the high farmgate price, did my research and decided against it.

Restricted farming volume (to minimize supply) and market too small.

Edited March 4, 2013 by RedBullHorn

[RedBullHorn]

What is the recommended stocking density per cubic metre for the claris catfish In a 3m3 tank setup.

Water level 1m,

Ideal stocking rate 1m³ Concrete/PVC tank(without filtration) : 16

or stock them by the hundreds and change water as scheduled (3-5 days).

With filtration : 1'000s

Edited March 4, 2013 by RedBullHorn

[jayci]

Tilapia information

Very good resource book which is easy to follow.

tilapia_growout_vol1.2.pdf

[David48]

There is some good info there for both the novice and producing farmer.

Interesting that they say that 'chopped cassava leaf' can be used as an additional food source.

ozzydom ... they speak primary about the method that you use, so I would be interested in reading your critique on it.

jayci ... good find ...

.

[ray23]

Thanks Red Bull,

The locals here said you could get a 100 baht per kilo. If 70 baht is the number not much reason to change things. We get 70 baht a kilo on Plan Nin now. We jst finished our first seasom and now have fry to put iin the floating nets that I finally got foxed. I will release them when they are big enoung not to get eaten. They are currently in small holding tank we have. Got plenty of 0-2 to it. The fliter system is not that great so I think I will hvae to change water once a week until we are ready to out them in the nets.

We have a small pond we have reserved for cat fish, so far we haven't been able to loacte in fry, here in Udon. The guy who normally has them, isn't getting delivery from Bangkok. So it's setting and waiting now.

Oxyegen content I have a low voltage pump the runs 7/24 in the Plan Nin pond. so nothing to check.

We followed Aussie Don's program as close as we could and have good algea formation. Worked just fine.

One problem we have is we can't really net these the pond has lots of jagged rocks in the side. We salw to the local's on an order basis and use cane fishing poles to catch them. Sometimes people come out and cath their own. Same price I just dontl have to fish.

One problem we ran into was worms for bait. Contacted Fergus and he sit us up. The last order we made having the worms in styrofoam boxes. First order gout used up so fast I didnl get any new ones. So made a second order. I believe the soil got to hot and killed the buggers.

I have now moved them inside a Mushroom house that has good ventilation. Left the tops off and just covered them with screen wire. Fergus is great he does all he do to help you. I willl be ordering again soon. You guys know him as Worm farmer.

I need to get this working the is only worm bait availabe in the rainy season. We are trying to fish year round. Have some of them at about a kilo size now. No biat so can't catch them. Wre have seem spme Thai guys who use sticky rice. for bait. It works and I have tried it, can't ge the rice to stay on the hook

Guess I need to get some lessons. On the things that is great with the small pond is you can use the net.

The fish for me is really a hobby, the mushrooms are not a hobby. As a by product we grind up the trimmings from the mushrooms and feed the worms with that. We try to recycle eveyhting we can. Haven't found a way to do that wirh the plastics bags that the muchrooms are in. Not the kapok they used to close the bags.

With all the people who got through trash I might be able to give the bags to them. We haven't had a problem with theft yet. We dont have a house there yet. But, we are close friends with the neighbors and thye keep an eye on things for us. When we are not there It wil;l be better when we build house only thing stopping me is money LOL

Our home is only three klms from the farm so traveling there is not a big deal. So far our market is within 3 klms of the farm neve had a problem with sales. We are raising our mushroom,to 10,000 plants. The fish also like the cuttings. It makes for free fodd for us either way.

Lot to learn.

[RedBullHorn]

You need to understand...Pla Mor farmgate price is always ฿70/kg, talah (wet market) price is ฿150/kg !!!!!

Pla Nin farmgate price is ฿58/kg, talah price is ฿70/kg.

You need to understand the term "farmgate"(manufacturer/producer price) and "Talah" (retail price)

Either you're selling the farmgate price... or the retail price...

Edited March 5, 2013 by RedBullHorn

[RedBullHorn]

My catfishes farm is my core business, generated ฿millions for me all this years, my tractor spare parts and home DIY shop is just a supplementary income (roughtly ฿360'000 profit per annum, hobby ? )

Edited March 5, 2013 by RedBullHorn

[jayci]

Could someone post all of the farmgate prices for aquacultured fish/prawns? And also talah prices if possible.

[RedBullHorn]

For all 76 provinces...really ?

I'd love to see you do it...contributing to this section of the forum.

So start Googling mate.

Edited March 5, 2013 by RedBullHorn

[jayci]

Sorry, didn't realize that it would be complicated.

[grimleybob]

For all 76 provinces...really ?

I'd love to see you do it...contributing to this section of the forum.

So start Googling mate.

[grimleybob]

For all 76 provinces...really ?

I'd love to see you do it...contributing to this section of the forum.

So start Googling mate.

[grimleybob]

For all 76 provinces...really ?

I'd love to see you do it...contributing to this section of the forum.

So start Googling mate.

I seem to have made a cock-up of the last 2 posts

RBH

Have you ever used soya based feed? If so, how did/does it compare to fishmeal based food on both price and performance.

The food I have seen is the 32/6.

Has anyone else used it?

GB

[RedBullHorn]

No sure what is the mix I'm having from the commercial feed pellet but mostly fishmeal based, i use a mix of grade A and Premium feed and my own concoction of additive booster to achieve a better FCR.

[ray23]

We sale a few kilos at a time for retial. I'm sure there must be large buyer in our area. We only run about 1500 fish at a time. So retail is best for us. Never have any trouble selling at retail. If I had a rai pond migth take it on a bit differently. Or ponds are vey diffeerent then most. One of the reasons, keep 0-2 on all the time.

We are now at 10,000 plants on the mushrooms, sale them locally at retail.

[jayci]

Feedipedia: An on-line encyclopedia of animal feeds

Lots of information and datasheets of many feed types.

http://www.feedipedia.org/

[RedBullHorn]

Just a reminder:

I contribute knowledge and tips..... not contacts !

[David48]

Just a reminder:

I contribute knowledge and tips..... not contacts !

... and those tips are warmly appreciated .. well be me anyway ...

.

[David48]

This thread is essentially designed to add to our collective knowledge about the Fish industry ... both for the commercial Farmer ... and the Hobby-Farm enthusiast.

So, thanks to reading one of RedBullHorn's posts ... I would like to add this Thread to our collective knowledge.

cleaning-fish-tanks mellow1

Remember, fish tanks come in all shapes and sizes!

.