Our Fish Farming Experiment....

[bina]

actually random in the tilapia program there are two options for predator fish introduced into the ponds so thought that its supposed to keep the fish 'on their toes/fins' sort of...

or as a natural culler /garbage cleanerupper for the weak tired hungry and poor of those fish

[tiger tanaka]

why do people put predator fish in the ponds, to cull out weaks ones or to make them move around a bit or what... i'm asking, no question key sorry.

Usually they don't I've put some in mine as I only feed at a very low rate and I feels theres to many small fry in there to support. Apart from that Pla CHon is one of my fav eating fish

Interesting thread, always interested in aquaculture. Back home in the States we used to follow a formula for a mix of Large Mouth Bass and Bluegill, so many fingerlings per acre or square foot, can't remember, but it worked pretty well. Bluegill alone will overpopulate and stunt, and bass alone will eat themselves out. Both of them together will balance each other out and you will get very nice sizes of both species after a couple of years. Of course these are just farm ponds with no outside feeding, not really a fish farm, but I suppose it could be applicable to Thailand.

Seems the trick here is to lower you food costs. I had a Thai friend in Chiang Rai who went every night to KFC, BIG C and MK and loaded up on food waste, pretty messy, but he did lower is feeding costs for pla duk. Feeding chicken and pork to fish, protein to make protein,, hmm... not sure about the efficiency there in the complete food cycle, but it worked for him, however, extremely labor intensive.

Edited February 18, 2007 by tiger tanaka

[frikkiedeboer]

i tried fishfarming pladuk for three years

we had 8 ponds of 25 by 35 meters

stocked them with between 25000 to 50000 fingerlings each during these years

fed them the right amount of fishfeed

we never had fish death because of sickness or bad water

other thai fishfarmers out of the area used to visit our farm and make compliments about the health and growing rates of our fish

the fish would be harvested by our wholesaler when the size was about 5 to a kg

we would normaly stock 2 to 3 ponds at a time and leave 1 or 2 ponds with water to be used for adding and waterchanges

we also installed a deepwaterwell at 120 meters for adding water during the dry season

the harvests overal were good

for example: a pond with 40000 fingerlings would yield around 7000 kg fish

in february 2004 i was at the farm while harvesting was going on

it took 3 weeks and 27 tons of pladuk went to the market for between 32 to 38 bath per kg

to cut the story short

we stopped with the operation because of the following reasons:

1- incease of energy prices(diesel aerationpumps)

2-wholesale prices of pladuk fluctuating between 26 and 38 bath per kg(dayprice)

3-breakeven price is around 32 bath

4-when average size of the fish is 5 to a kg you need to harvest

for large size fish is no market and price is 3 bath below the dayprice

5-fishgrowth slow during cold and raining season (fish will not eat)

6-energy price up so the fishfeed prices went up, dayprice not

7- wholesaler not able to harvest when fish is the right size,because of other fishfarms harvesting at the same time and sometimes not able to get rid of the daily catch because of not enough market

8- fish keeps on eating and growing while waiting for the wholesaler( to big, less money)

there are more reasons i'm not able to think of at this moment

we even tried making fishfeed to cut costs but because of the birdflu this was to risky

we also tried the maggots, but thai people dont like maggots and pigshit

so after making some money when prices were good but in the end the average prices were to low to run a good operation i decided to call it quits.

at this moment we are using the fishponds as waterstorage for rice farming

rearing costs you worked out are about right. if you had raised in concrete tanks you would not have had the harvest-related problems you experienced.

maggots are an excellent protien source-the pigshit causes algal blooms and plankton flourish-so will the fish that feed on them. most of the thai fish are reared on rotten chicken-cant see them having a problem with abovementioned alternatives. maggots are actually really clean, and are used medically to clean gangrenous wounds!

i found no problem selling fish of up to a kilogram in weight-there was dafinitely a market for them,but i sold direct-not to wholesalers

good luck

frikkie

[Tilapia]

i tried fishfarming pladuk for three years

we had 8 ponds of 25 by 35 meters

stocked them with between 25000 to 50000 fingerlings each during these years

fed them the right amount of fishfeed

we never had fish death because of sickness or bad water

other thai fishfarmers out of the area used to visit our farm and make compliments about the health and growing rates of our fish

the fish would be harvested by our wholesaler when the size was about 5 to a k

we would normaly stock 2 to 3 ponds at a time and leave 1 or 2 ponds with water to be used for adding and waterchanges

we also installed a deepwaterwell at 120 meters for adding water during the dry season

the harvests overal were good

for example: a pond with 40000 fingerlings would yield around 7000 kg fish

in february 2004 i was at the farm while harvesting was going on

it took 3 weeks and 27 tons of pladuk went to the market for between 32 to 38 bath per kg

to cut the story short

we stopped with the operation because of the following reasons:

1- incease of energy prices(diesel aerationpumps)

2-wholesale prices of pladuk fluctuating between 26 and 38 bath per kg(dayprice)

3-breakeven price is around 32 bath

4-when average size of the fish is 5 to a kg you need to harvest

for large size fish is no market and price is 3 bath below the dayprice

5-fishgrowth slow during cold and raining season (fish will not eat)

6-energy price up so the fishfeed prices went up, dayprice not

7- wholesaler not able to harvest when fish is the right size,because of other fishfarms harvesting at the same time and sometimes not able to get rid of the daily catch because of not enough market

8- fish keeps on eating and growing while waiting for the wholesaler( to big, less money)

there are more reasons i'm not able to think of at this moment

we even tried making fishfeed to cut costs but because of the birdflu this was to risky

we also tried the maggots, but thai people dont like maggots and pigshit

so after making some money when prices were good but in the end the average prices were to low to run a good operation i decided to call it quits.

at this moment we are using the fishponds as waterstorage for rice farming

Selling to a middle-man is always a losing road, they have all the excuses in world for not paying the right price, I had the same problem before when I did catfish, I told them to take a hike and never come back. Then I started our own wholesale, first with catfish and now I have change to Tilapia, with the catfish it was to hard to compete with Supanburi, they sell them very cheap, so our margin was to small, with Tilapia it is better and the market here is more constant than with the catfish.

One question : Why did you use aerationspumps ? Normally catfish in your pond-size dont require additional oxygen.

Best regards.

Tilapia

[frikkiedeboer]

i tried fishfarming pladuk for three years

we had 8 ponds of 25 by 35 meters

stocked them with between 25000 to 50000 fingerlings each during these years

fed them the right amount of fishfeed

we never had fish death because of sickness or bad water

other thai fishfarmers out of the area used to visit our farm and make compliments about the health and growing rates of our fish

the fish would be harvested by our wholesaler when the size was about 5 to a k

we would normaly stock 2 to 3 ponds at a time and leave 1 or 2 ponds with water to be used for adding and waterchanges

we also installed a deepwaterwell at 120 meters for adding water during the dry season

the harvests overal were good

for example: a pond with 40000 fingerlings would yield around 7000 kg fish

in february 2004 i was at the farm while harvesting was going on

it took 3 weeks and 27 tons of pladuk went to the market for between 32 to 38 bath per kg

to cut the story short

we stopped with the operation because of the following reasons:

1- incease of energy prices(diesel aerationpumps)

2-wholesale prices of pladuk fluctuating between 26 and 38 bath per kg(dayprice)

3-breakeven price is around 32 bath

4-when average size of the fish is 5 to a kg you need to harvest

for large size fish is no market and price is 3 bath below the dayprice

5-fishgrowth slow during cold and raining season (fish will not eat)

6-energy price up so the fishfeed prices went up, dayprice not

7- wholesaler not able to harvest when fish is the right size,because of other fishfarms harvesting at the same time and sometimes not able to get rid of the daily catch because of not enough market

8- fish keeps on eating and growing while waiting for the wholesaler( to big, less money)

there are more reasons i'm not able to think of at this moment

we even tried making fishfeed to cut costs but because of the birdflu this was to risky

we also tried the maggots, but thai people dont like maggots and pigshit

so after making some money when prices were good but in the end the average prices were to low to run a good operation i decided to call it quits.

at this moment we are using the fishponds as waterstorage for rice farming

Selling to a middle-man is always a losing road, they have all the excuses in world for not paying the right price, I had the same problem before when I did catfish, I told them to take a hike and never come back. Then I started our own wholesale, first with catfish and now I have change to Tilapia, with the catfish it was to hard to compete with Supanburi, they sell them very cheap, so our margin was to small, with Tilapia it is better and the market here is more constant than with the catfish.

One question : Why did you use aerationspumps ? Normally catfish in your pond-size dont require additional oxygen.

Best regards.

Tilapia

the clarias catfish can survive in water with 0%dissolved oxygen. many of the sites you will find on the net suggest oxygenayoin of th water, but most you will have visited will be on the subject of raising the american catfish which does not have air-breathing capabilities. aeration will help at high densities as aerobic bacteria will thrive, which will help to remove the ammonias from the water,but to make maximum use of this you should consider building yourself a simple biofiltration system, thus allowing you to increase stocking density ,minimise losses due to diseases and improve profits.

frikkie

[ray23]

Interesting I will will probably have to reread this about 50 times to get clue of what you guy are talking about.

However let me try a question that would be important in starting out, if you wanted to produce a profit of 40K a monh how many rai of land land would you need to start with?

[OOLEEBER]

Fish feed prices are the most important thing to getting it right.I have found 20kg fish feed at 260 baht a bag(thai prices at the local shop in sukothai)specifically suited for small fish.As iam starting to grow taptim fish..much bigger than catfish..this is the feed the shop owner recommended.Why is everyone quoting higher prices for feed???

Hi Supersomchai,

Which shop in Sukhothai? I'm paying B490 for 666-1 here in Khirri Matt. (at least that's what the wife says - I've forgotten) We're just starting the Red Tilapia on this and will move up to the bigger size when they get bigger.

Cheers

Ollie

[frikkiedeboer]

Fish feed prices are the most important thing to getting it right.I have found 20kg fish feed at 260 baht a bag(thai prices at the local shop in sukothai)specifically suited for small fish.As iam starting to grow taptim fish..much bigger than catfish..this is the feed the shop owner recommended.Why is everyone quoting higher prices for feed???

Hi Supersomchai,

Which shop in Sukhothai? I'm paying B490 for 666-1 here in Khirri Matt. (at least that's what the wife says - I've forgotten) We're just starting the Red Tilapia on this and will move up to the bigger size when they get bigger.

Cheers

Ollie

be wary of cheaper pellets. the protien content mostly determines the price. often it is false economy to buy cheaper pellets since you will be paying more for the protien content and the cheaper,less important ingredients are making up the bulk.

in thailand, the bigger the pellet, the lower the protien content and therefore the cheaper the price.

]here is what the proffessional farmers in south africa use:

pre-starter: 52%protien

starter: 41%

grower 32%

semi-intensive:25% -if you are growing in a pond, this is proibably ok but i would not use anything with a lower protien content- you will find that the fish will grow out slower and you will have a poorer fcr. and production cost will be higher.do not believe anything you hear from a thai about fishfarming. they all claim to be experts and in reality, not one of them knows what he is talking about-and definitely not one shopkeeper,trying to sell pellets!. study the subject yourself and learn from others who have studied. you are highly unlikely to make a major discovery yourself that you could not have gotten from the internet.(been there-done that-we are often not as clever as we think we are) , and by the way,you definitely got ripped off with the fingerlings

check out tilapia's posts.- he has got the tilapia thing right.

good luck

frikkie

[Tilapia]

Fish feed prices are the most important thing to getting it right.I have found 20kg fish feed at 260 baht a bag(thai prices at the local shop in sukothai)specifically suited for small fish.As iam starting to grow taptim fish..much bigger than catfish..this is the feed the shop owner recommended.Why is everyone quoting higher prices for feed???

Hi Supersomchai,

Which shop in Sukhothai? I'm paying B490 for 666-1 here in Khirri Matt. (at least that's what the wife says - I've forgotten) We're just starting the Red Tilapia on this and will move up to the bigger size when they get bigger.

Cheers

Ollie

be wary of cheaper pellets. the protien content mostly determines the price. often it is false economy to buy cheaper pellets since you will be paying more for the protien content and the cheaper,less important ingredients are making up the bulk.

in thailand, the bigger the pellet, the lower the protien content and therefore the cheaper the price.

]here is what the proffessional farmers in south africa use:

pre-starter: 52%protien

starter: 41%

grower 32%

semi-intensive:25% -if you are growing in a pond, this is proibably ok but i would not use anything with a lower protien content- you will find that the fish will grow out slower and you will have a poorer fcr. and production cost will be higher.do not believe anything you hear from a thai about fishfarming. they all claim to be experts and in reality, not one of them knows what he is talking about-and definitely not one shopkeeper,trying to sell pellets!. study the subject yourself and learn from others who have studied. you are highly unlikely to make a major discovery yourself that you could not have gotten from the internet.(been there-done that-we are often not as clever as we think we are) , and by the way,you definitely got ripped off with the fingerlings

check out tilapia's posts.- he has got the tilapia thing right.

good luck

frikkie

Hi.

I agree with Frikkie, the feed to 260baht/bag is most likely only 15-20% protein, catfish will not grow with that amount of protein, and Tilapia will preform very slow (you can use on mixed-sex Tilapia). Another thing you need to be aware of is the brand of feed, how come CP and other big companies selling there 30% and 32% feed for 395-430 baht/bag, and with another company you can get for 330 baht/bag ??? You have to look at what raw material they get the protein from, if it is from fishmeal, then it is ok, but if it is from chicken-bones and feathers, then forget about it, because it is not crude-protein. There are many factors to take in consideration in fish-farming, at least if you are planning to make some money from it.

Good luck.

Tilapia.

[OOLEEBER]

Thanks Frikkie and Tilapia,

On the subject of food. I heard of a guy who buys old or spoiled fruit and veges from the Talat for 3 Baht /kg. And I think the harvest of fish was 5,000kg. I hope I bump into him again and I'll ask for more info but in the meantime..... I've got a lot of questions.

Is there anything that's waste from the market that you can't give the fish? Like Lemon peels? (just an example).

Sureley there is much less protein and more water in a kg of bananna skin than a pellet so the fush must eat a lot more.

How on earth do you know how much to feed them?

At the moment I walk around the pond twice a day and broadcast the pellets everywhere - Would i have to do that with rotting mangoes or just dump them in the one corner?

Is market waste ok on it's own or should I suppliment it with some pellets?

I liked the link about the maggot farm but there's a lot of pre construction involved there and definately a lot of maintenance and concerns about vermin and snakes.

I've tried the lights over the pond but only solar ones because it's 100m from the house and I think the light is too weak from the solar and the rechargeable batteries.

As the profitability really does seem to depend on the feed costs, are there any more ideas out there for cheaper food that can be used in combinations to reduce the costs. I'm always chucking in old bread and mushrooms that grow near the pond and the Pla Duk and Pla Chon loved them last year.

I know another Farrang with 6 ponds and he bought a refurbished mincer to mix up Cow-shit and rice bran and fruit from his land that he could not eat fast enough and he used to make it into ball and let dry in the sun and per KG it was very cheap but I think too labour intensive. Now his wife drives around and sells the fish to the end consumer to make top $ and they do OK. But my point is, he tried to do something about the food costs.

The idea about the light and the water container is something I'd thought about too but I know someone who does that and sells the crikets for B90 a Kg so its pretty expensive to give to a fish.

Anyway. Does anyone have any other ideas or soloutions out there?

Also...... what's the latest on the experiment? it must have run full course by now.

Cheers

Ollie

[frikkiedeboer]

I know another Farrang with 6 ponds and he bought a refurbished mincer to mix up Cow-shit and rice bran and fruit from his land that he could not eat fast enough ................................

sorry,i wouldnt be able to eat a mixture of cowshit and rice bran and fruit either!..............jokes,aside-you have to decide whether you are going to farm fish recreationally,on a subsistence level as the thais do,or are you going to get serious?

the cowshit will result in algae-growth,-a rich protien source, and zooplankton which feed on it will appear,too, also a good protien source. i doubt if the rotten fruit will do much, and the rice bran,well....

tilapia mentioned duckweed on another post of his-i heard that this is a good protien source,too. remember that the profit margin is relatively low, and you will need to raise a lot of fish to be able to earn anything approaching a reasonable living. you will not get there on rotting fruit and cowshit unless you have a huge body of water and a lot of cowshit! (by the way,chickenshit works better). i suggest you stick with a formulated feed, and leave it to cp contaminate the rivers with rotting fruit and cowshit! i see you also figured out the insects thing! maybe we should all start cricket farms!l

i have no experience with tilapia, but have done the round-trip with home made fishfeed,rotting chicken etc. do not waste your time unless you know exactly what you are doing. in the end this approach will cost you more money than buying formulated feeds. you cannot afford poor fcr or prolonged grow-out period.you need to raise as many fish as fast as possible as efficiently as possible if you are going to make it work.

good luck

frikkie

[OOLEEBER]

Thanks Frikkie and Tilapia,

On the subject of food. I heard of a guy who buys old or spoiled fruit and veges from the Talat for 3 Baht /kg. And I think the harvest of fish was 5,000kg. I hope I bump into him again and I'll ask for more info but in the meantime..... I've got a lot of questions.

Is there anything that's waste from the market that you can't give the fish? Like Lemon peels? (just an example).

Sureley there is much less protein and more water in a kg of bananna skin than a pellet so the fush must eat a lot more.

How on earth do you know how much to feed them?

At the moment I walk around the pond twice a day and broadcast the pellets everywhere - Would i have to do that with rotting mangoes or just dump them in the one corner?

Is market waste ok on it's own or should I suppliment it with some pellets?

I liked the link about the maggot farm but there's a lot of pre construction involved there and definately a lot of maintenance and concerns about vermin and snakes.

I've tried the lights over the pond but only solar ones because it's 100m from the house and I think the light is too weak from the solar and the rechargeable batteries.

As the profitability really does seem to depend on the feed costs, are there any more ideas out there for cheaper food that can be used in combinations to reduce the costs. I'm always chucking in old bread and mushrooms that grow near the pond and the Pla Duk and Pla Chon loved them last year.

I know another Farrang with 6 ponds and he bought a refurbished mincer to mix up Cow-shit and rice bran and fruit from his land that he could not eat fast enough and he used to make it into ball and let dry in the sun and per KG it was very cheap but I think too labour intensive. Now his wife drives around and sells the fish to the end consumer to make top $ and they do OK. But my point is, he tried to do something about the food costs.

The idea about the light and the water container is something I'd thought about too but I know someone who does that and sells the crikets for B90 a Kg so its pretty expensive to give to a fish.

Anyway. Does anyone have any other ideas or soloutions out there?

Also...... what's the latest on the experiment? it must have run full course by now.

Cheers

Ollie

Thanks again Frikkie

Rgds

Ollie

[Tilapia]

Hi Ollie.

If you want to try different kind of feed, then you should run your farm for fun, and not for making money, using alternative feed, might seem good in the begining, but it takes longer time to reach the market size, and you source of feed may start to be unreliable, if you want to expand your farm. Also the amount of altenative feed you need, will be more than the double, than if you are using commercial pellets, a normal FCR using pellets is between 1,4-1,8 depending on many factors, altenative feed your FCR would be between 3-6, plus that it will take longer time, and your stocking density would have to be lover as well. The cheap way is not always the best, the aqua-world is a challenge.

Tilapia.

[chownah]

]here is what the proffessional farmers in south africa use:

pre-starter: 52%protien

starter: 41%

grower 32%

semi-intensive:25%

What do they use to get 52% protein?

[Tilapia]

]here is what the proffessional farmers in south africa use:

pre-starter: 52%protien

starter: 41%

grower 32%

semi-intensive:25%

What do they use to get 52% protein?

Almost 100% pure fish-meal, mixed with some ram (rice-polish) this is in powder-form, not in pellets, I use 45% protein for our fry.

Tilapia.

[aqua4]

Does the OP have any updates to the thread.It is very interesting!

[Tilapia]

Does the OP have any updates to the thread.It is very interesting!

Hi

I think the experiment went down the drain due to many factors.

Maybe we can help you, what are you looking for.

Regards.

Tilapia.

[chownah]

My wife seems to have revived her interest in doing something to increase the amount of fish growing in our pond. The village gave every house 250 small pla duk (about 5 cm long or a bit more) and a very small amount of starter food to go with. My wife was given three extra bags of fish from family and friends who don't have ponds so she now has 1,000 small fish in the pond. She is putting up netting to keep them from walking away during the rainy season and seems like she wants to exert some effort to actually help them grow but its hard to tell as her involvement in projects tend to blow hot and cold. I'm wanting to give her advise of what to do because if she has some success perhaps she will be encouraged to continue and do even more to improve her yield in the future. She is not concerned about being commercial and would like to make some money (wouldn't we all) but I'm sure that if she broke even or even lost only a little bit of money but produced some nice fish that she would be happy.

The pond is about 150 sq. metres so I think we are not overstocked....it is long and thin approximately 3metres wide and 50 meters long more or less. It contains ground water and has no circulation to speak of....we will not mechanically circulate or aerate.

When releasing the fingerlings I noticed that some where pretty much pure black and some had white spots....are white spots a normal coloring or is this a disease...if its a disease and half of the fish had them does this mean that about half will die?....or more...or less? We will not be using medication on them.

How much feed and what type (protein content or other considerations) should she use? I have already told her that buying the cheapest food is said to be a waste of money and I could see her face drop indicating that this was how she planned to proceed and was concerned about what to do. Also, remember that she is not trying to be commericial. She says that she is going to harvest the fish in about 4 or 5 months after the rice harvest.

It would be encouraging for her to see the growth as it occurs (assuming that there will be growth) so how do you examine the fish to see the progress?...net some during feeding?

Chownah

[frikkiedeboer]

My wife seems to have revived her interest in doing something to increase the amount of fish growing in our pond. The village gave every house 250 small pla duk (about 5 cm long or a bit more) and a very small amount of starter food to go with. My wife was given three extra bags of fish from family and friends who don't have ponds so she now has 1,000 small fish in the pond. She is putting up netting to keep them from walking away during the rainy season and seems like she wants to exert some effort to actually help them grow but its hard to tell as her involvement in projects tend to blow hot and cold. I'm wanting to give her advise of what to do because if she has some success perhaps she will be encouraged to continue and do even more to improve her yield in the future. She is not concerned about being commercial and would like to make some money (wouldn't we all) but I'm sure that if she broke even or even lost only a little bit of money but produced some nice fish that she would be happy.

The pond is about 150 sq. metres so I think we are not overstocked....it is long and thin approximately 3metres wide and 50 meters long more or less. It contains ground water and has no circulation to speak of....we will not mechanically circulate or aerate.

When releasing the fingerlings I noticed that some where pretty much pure black and some had white spots....are white spots a normal coloring or is this a disease...if its a disease and half of the fish had them does this mean that about half will die?....or more...or less? We will not be using medication on them.

How much feed and what type (protein content or other considerations) should she use? I have already told her that buying the cheapest food is said to be a waste of money and I could see her face drop indicating that this was how she planned to proceed and was concerned about what to do. Also, remember that she is not trying to be commericial. She says that she is going to harvest the fish in about 4 or 5 months after the rice harvest.

It would be encouraging for her to see the growth as it occurs (assuming that there will be growth) so how do you examine the fish to see the progress?...net some during feeding?

Chownah

hi, chownah'

the white spots could be fungus, but if they are in short vertical lines down the signs, it is normal and indicates that the fish are the "beeg oei" hybrid. if you already released them and they have fungus, there is little you could do - it will not be worth your while to medicate. they often survive this as long as the water is warm enough.

if your wife is not serious about raising commercially, i would suggest only occasional feeding. use the smallest pellets with the highest protien content. (even these do not contain enough protien for optimum growth of catfish, but are ok for recreational farming) you can apply some superphosphate or chicken manure, to get algae, and zooplankton and the copepods and crustations that feed on them, established, and at your stocking density the fish will probably grow out in the time you mentioned without additional feeding. catfish CAN filter feed on plankton. if you do it right,you will notice reddish blooms, looking like a kind of red algae, but is in fact daphnia- a good food source for them.

the netting around the pond helps but you can solve the walkout problem and flooding more effectively by raising the walls around the pond and leaving just a small protected overflow on one end. they do not generally go walkabout unless overstocked, or there is flooding, in which case they go in search of food or shallow, fertile areas in which to spawn. heavy rain and runoff inflow will stimulate the spawning instinct and they will swim upstream, and into the neighbour's rice paddy for a boink!

do not worry about the stocking density- you would be able to support 50 to 100 fingerlings per square metre without water exchange if you are not overfeeding. the algae will help clean the water, too, so do not worry about the chickenshit contaminating the water.

good luck,

frikkie

[Tilapia]

Or you release a few Tilapia (mixed sex) and let the plar duc feed on the fry, I do that with plar chon, and it works fine.

Tilapia.

[chownah]

My wife seems to have revived her interest in doing something to increase the amount of fish growing in our pond. The village gave every house 250 small pla duk (about 5 cm long or a bit more) and a very small amount of starter food to go with. My wife was given three extra bags of fish from family and friends who don't have ponds so she now has 1,000 small fish in the pond. She is putting up netting to keep them from walking away during the rainy season and seems like she wants to exert some effort to actually help them grow but its hard to tell as her involvement in projects tend to blow hot and cold. I'm wanting to give her advise of what to do because if she has some success perhaps she will be encouraged to continue and do even more to improve her yield in the future. She is not concerned about being commercial and would like to make some money (wouldn't we all) but I'm sure that if she broke even or even lost only a little bit of money but produced some nice fish that she would be happy.

The pond is about 150 sq. metres so I think we are not overstocked....it is long and thin approximately 3metres wide and 50 meters long more or less. It contains ground water and has no circulation to speak of....we will not mechanically circulate or aerate.

When releasing the fingerlings I noticed that some where pretty much pure black and some had white spots....are white spots a normal coloring or is this a disease...if its a disease and half of the fish had them does this mean that about half will die?....or more...or less? We will not be using medication on them.

How much feed and what type (protein content or other considerations) should she use? I have already told her that buying the cheapest food is said to be a waste of money and I could see her face drop indicating that this was how she planned to proceed and was concerned about what to do. Also, remember that she is not trying to be commericial. She says that she is going to harvest the fish in about 4 or 5 months after the rice harvest.

It would be encouraging for her to see the growth as it occurs (assuming that there will be growth) so how do you examine the fish to see the progress?...net some during feeding?

Chownah

hi, chownah'

the white spots could be fungus, but if they are in short vertical lines down the signs, it is normal and indicates that the fish are the "beeg oei" hybrid. if you already released them and they have fungus, there is little you could do - it will not be worth your while to medicate. they often survive this as long as the water is warm enough.

if your wife is not serious about raising commercially, i would suggest only occasional feeding. use the smallest pellets with the highest protien content. (even these do not contain enough protien for optimum growth of catfish, but are ok for recreational farming) you can apply some superphosphate or chicken manure, to get algae, and zooplankton and the copepods and crustations that feed on them, established, and at your stocking density the fish will probably grow out in the time you mentioned without additional feeding. catfish CAN filter feed on plankton. if you do it right,you will notice reddish blooms, looking like a kind of red algae, but is in fact daphnia- a good food source for them.

the netting around the pond helps but you can solve the walkout problem and flooding more effectively by raising the walls around the pond and leaving just a small protected overflow on one end. they do not generally go walkabout unless overstocked, or there is flooding, in which case they go in search of food or shallow, fertile areas in which to spawn. heavy rain and runoff inflow will stimulate the spawning instinct and they will swim upstream, and into the neighbour's rice paddy for a boink!

do not worry about the stocking density- you would be able to support 50 to 100 fingerlings per square metre without water exchange if you are not overfeeding. the algae will help clean the water, too, so do not worry about the chickenshit contaminating the water.

good luck,

frikkie

Thanks for the advise. I've got some chickenshit already for the garden and I'll probably donate it to the fish effort....for a 150 sq. metre pond what is a very approximate amount? Maybe I should add a couple of bucket fulls (the small plastic buckets that are used in construction) every couple of days until the pond turns reddish?.....or should I start off with a fertilizer bag full? I guess I should broadcast the chickenshit over the entire surface of the pond to get it dissolved in as quickly as possible. If in addition to the chickenshit we decide to feed a small amount could it be every few days and would the fish all come up to eat when the feed hits the water? I'm thinking that if my wife feeds them every few days and sees them then she will see that they are growing and give her a sense of accomplishment and encourage her a bit with some positive feedback.

Also, if the pond water turns pea green is this just as good as turning red? Seems like I've heard that the green color is good too. Once the proper color is established should I keep putting chickenshit in the pond regularly to keep the daphnia or algae or whatever growing vigorously...or wait for the color to fade somewhat before adding more?

Chownah

[chownah]

Or you release a few Tilapia (mixed sex) and let the plar duc feed on the fry, I do that with plar chon, and it works fine.

Tilapia.

If I put chickenshit in the pond as Frikkiedeboer suggested would the Tilapia be more efficient at feeding on the daphnia or algae or whatever and thus improve the diet of the pla duc?....or is the advantage of this that we would get some Tilapia too? How many would be "a few"?

Chownah

[Tilapia]

Or you release a few Tilapia (mixed sex) and let the plar duc feed on the fry, I do that with plar chon, and it works fine.

Tilapia.

If I put chickenshit in the pond as Frikkiedeboer suggested would the Tilapia be more efficient at feeding on the daphnia or algae or whatever and thus improve the diet of the pla duc?....or is the advantage of this that we would get some Tilapia too? How many would be "a few"?

Chownah

Remember that plar Duc is not a algae eater, it's a "meat eater" fertilizing your pond to much could back-fire, and as you say, the water will be all red with dead algae, and that will hurt the O2level in the pond.

I would say that 75-100 Tilapia would be ok, the will feed on the algae, breed like rabbits, and the Plar Duc eat the fry, and you dont have to spend so much on pellets, remember if you use pellets less than 26% protein, your Plar Duc will grow very slow.

Good luck

Tilapia

[chownah]

Tilapia,

Thanks for the reply. I was confused at first when you said that pla duc are not algae eaters as it seemed to contradict what Frikkiedeboer had said but after goggling around abit and rereading the posts and scratching my head I think I realized that Frikkiedeboer is suggesting that the algae will feed the growth of some small algae eating animals (one of which is called daphnia) and the pla duc will eat them. I guess your suggestion is that if the algae eating animals don't colonize the pond well enough then the pla duc will not have enough to eat but that Tilapia will surely eat the algae and produce fry which will then get eaten by the pla duc.

So now I guess I need to figure out how to tell if the Daphnia (and other little animals) will grow in the pond or not. I think the best way for me to proceed is to add the chickenshit AND feed pellets while waiting for the Daphnia (and others) to start growing....and also get some Tilapia if my wife can find some mixed sex ones available. I'm wondering if the pond will get green first from the algae and then turn red from the Daphnia or not....and how to tell for sure if those little animals are indeed growing and providing food for the pla duc. I wish I had a microscope as I'm reasonable sure that you could use it to verify the presence of the little critters....but I don't. I'm wondering if I could find a pond somewhere with daphnia growing and took a bucket of water from it if I could seed my pond....as a last resort of course as it would introduce the possibility spreading disease.

I almost forgot...my wife also put in some small boney fish a few months ago (again these were given out by the village for free). These fish are small and boney so the only thing the Thais do with them is to make lap pla (fish lap). She says they are called "pla nuan jahn". Anyone heard of them? I think they are vegetarians but not sure. Is it possible that they might be providing fry to feed the pla duc? I'd prefer that my wife get some Tilapia but she's not very motivated to go out and find stuff....seems like she only gets motivated when someone gives her some fish....so I'm looking at all the angles.

By the way, I think that Tilapia is the same as pla nin....is that right?

Chownah

Edited July 23, 2007 by chownah

[Tilapia]

Tilapia,

Thanks for the reply. I was confused at first when you said that pla duc are not algae eaters as it seemed to contradict what Frikkiedeboer had said but after goggling around abit and rereading the posts and scratching my head I think I realized that Frikkiedeboer is suggesting that the algae will feed the growth of some small algae eating animals (one of which is called daphnia) and the pla duc will eat them. I guess your suggestion is that if the algae eating animals don't colonize the pond well enough then the pla duc will not have enough to eat but that Tilapia will surely eat the algae and produce fry which will then get eaten by the pla duc.

So now I guess I need to figure out how to tell if the Daphnia (and other little animals) will grow in the pond or not. I think the best way for me to proceed is to add the chickenshit AND feed pellets while waiting for the Daphnia (and others) to start growing....and also get some Tilapia if my wife can find some mixed sex ones available. I'm wondering if the pond will get green first from the algae and then turn red from the Daphnia or not....and how to tell for sure if those little animals are indeed growing and providing food for the pla duc. I wish I had a microscope as I'm reasonable sure that you could use it to verify the presence of the little critters....but I don't. I'm wondering if I could find a pond somewhere with daphnia growing and took a bucket of water from it if I could seed my pond....as a last resort of course as it would introduce the possibility spreading disease.

I almost forgot...my wife also put in some small boney fish a few months ago (again these were given out by the village for free). These fish are small and boney so the only thing the Thais do with them is to make lap pla (fish lap). She says they are called "pla nuan jahn". Anyone heard of them? I think they are vegetarians but not sure. Is it possible that they might be providing fry to feed the pla duc? I'd prefer that my wife get some Tilapia but she's not very motivated to go out and find stuff....seems like she only gets motivated when someone gives her some fish....so I'm looking at all the angles.

By the way, I think that Tilapia is the same as pla nin....is that right?

Chownah

Spot on, that was what frikkie meant and it will work, releasing the Tilapia/plar Nin (they are the same) is a safety factor, so the algae will be kept down, the daphnia will colonize if the suroundings are right, if not, then the plar Duc still will eat the fry from the Tilapia.

I dont know the boney ones, but I will check with my workers.

regards

Tilapia

[chownah]

Tilapia,

Thanks for that. In case my first attempt at spelling the name for the boney fish is misleading, I'll try again.....pla newan jahn....."newan" is pronounced just like the English words "new" and "an" but run them together into one word.

Chownah

[frikkiedeboer]

sorry, my post was a bit misleading. what tilapia said was correct.(as usual). you do not want your water to turn red. an algae die-off is the last thing you want. the daphnia have a reddish tinge, but you want green water. his polyculture (tilapia and catfish) suggestion is a good idea, too. tilapia will eat the algae, catfish eat the zooplankton , and they will not need coaxing to eat the excess tilapia fry, so it is good for both species.there is a load of info on the net about fertilising ponds with various manures, and it makes interesting reading. do not knock yourself out worrying if there will be enough zooplankton. if the water turns green, they will be there. you can get a small plankton net and go around the edges and take samples-you will be surprised how fast the zooplankton appear "out of nowhere" about two to four days after manuring.

recommended quantities for catfish nursery ponds is:

superphosphate:30kg/hectare

or

chicken manure: 450kg/hectare

or

cowdung 6 to 10 tons per hectare

i suggest you pester tilapia or ozzydom for information about the "greenwater system" and maintainance of nutrient levels- i only do catfish, and only pellet-feed.

you should not need to pellet-feed if you get the system working properly, but if you want to have some fun, and observe growth, feed a small amount at the same place, and time each day. they will come to the spot and wait for you, and can be trained to feed from your hand.

have fun

best regards

frikkie

[xerostar]

About 40 years ago I visited a farm near Perth in Western Australia

where a guy was experimenting with breeding insects.

He had a shed with huge piles of rubbish - all biodegradable stuff

anything from lawn clippings to dead animals, dung etc.

He had found a kind of small beetle that was happy to eat all that

stuff and multiplied at a huge rate.

I don't know how he separated the bugs from the un-eaten rubbish but

he processed them by roasting them in a rotary oven and

then fed them into a crusher that produced a fine powder of very high

protein value. He said it could be used as an additive to cattle feed.

I would imagine that the same process could be used to make fish

food. Eventually his project was shut down by the health authorities

because they were worried that the process could spread disease.

He also invented the process to recycle old tyres by freezing them with

liquid nitrogen and crushing them but had trouble making anyone interested

in the process. It was cheaper to throw the tyres onto a rubbish tip.

Using lights over the ponds is an excellent way of making use of insects.

How about breeding them in captivity (or capturing them en mass) and

feeding them to the fish ..

I remember driving through swampy country at night. After a few kilometres

the windscreen was like a carpet - thick with dead midges/mosquitos.

If you had a large net mounted on the back of a pickup, I reckon you could

gather enough bugs to feed your fish almost (less fuel costs) for free?

That may be a bit too dependent on the season though ..

Another perhaps manageable method would be to use bacteria in the

same way that brewers use yeast to make beer.

I believe a lot of food products are made this way. e.g. Vegemite ..

The aim would be to use cheap carbohydrate (rice or cane sugar)

then add nitrogen and other ingredients to produce protein.

One only needs to find the correct bacteria to do the conversion.

It could solve the world's food (fish) shortage.

[Somtham]

My wife seems to have revived her interest in doing something to increase the amount of fish growing in our pond. The village gave every house 250 small pla duk (about 5 cm long or a bit more) and a very small amount of starter food to go with. My wife was given three extra bags of fish from family and friends who don't have ponds so she now has 1,000 small fish in the pond. She is putting up netting to keep them from walking away during the rainy season and seems like she wants to exert some effort to actually help them grow but its hard to tell as her involvement in projects tend to blow hot and cold. I'm wanting to give her advise of what to do because if she has some success perhaps she will be encouraged to continue and do even more to improve her yield in the future. She is not concerned about being commercial and would like to make some money (wouldn't we all) but I'm sure that if she broke even or even lost only a little bit of money but produced some nice fish that she would be happy.

The pond is about 150 sq. metres so I think we are not overstocked....it is long and thin approximately 3metres wide and 50 meters long more or less. It contains ground water and has no circulation to speak of....we will not mechanically circulate or aerate.

When releasing the fingerlings I noticed that some where pretty much pure black and some had white spots....are white spots a normal coloring or is this a disease...if its a disease and half of the fish had them does this mean that about half will die?....or more...or less? We will not be using medication on them.

How much feed and what type (protein content or other considerations) should she use? I have already told her that buying the cheapest food is said to be a waste of money and I could see her face drop indicating that this was how she planned to proceed and was concerned about what to do. Also, remember that she is not trying to be commericial. She says that she is going to harvest the fish in about 4 or 5 months after the rice harvest.

It would be encouraging for her to see the growth as it occurs (assuming that there will be growth) so how do you examine the fish to see the progress?...net some during feeding?

Chownah

CN - From previous posts I guess that your pond has had water in it for some time already and should therefore already be "green". You also mentioned that your goal was to sell the fish in 4-5 months. I would say forget the chicken dung and start feeding them pellets....now. At 5cm they should be able to take a #1pellet at 32% protein which I pay B360 per 20kg bag. Feed them that for about a month and then decrease the protein to 30% using a #2 pellet at ~B335 per 20kg bag and continue until they're ready for market in 4-5 months.

As the weather starts to get colder the Big Ooi will almost stop they're feeding. At best it will be about 25% of what it is in the warm weather. In KPP they slow down the eating in late December and with you being in Chiang Rai that may occur in early December.

Fatten them up now on pellets so they are a marketable size by early December. If you don't, it will be Songkran before they are big enough to sell and that's not going to encourage your wife at all!

DISCLAIMER - we're still in the red after 18 months of catfish farming!!

rgds

[chownah]

Somtham,

Interesting post. Surprisingly the pond (which is more than two years old) has never really turned green. Where we live ponds are dug to ground water level which varies throughout the year from being at the surface of the ground during rice season when the paddy is all flooded to being maybe 1.5 or 2 metres below ground level depending on the exact place....maybe this has to do with why the pond hasn't turned green...it did sort of get green during the dry season when the water depth got down to about 40 cm more or less and my wife had been throwing our compost in it for awhile.

I'm thinking that we'll try to get the algae growing AND do some feeding. I think I understand how to use manure to feed the algae but I know that the amount of pellets to feed depends on the size or weight of the fish in the pond but so far I don't know how to estimate the weight and haven't found any advise yet on how to guage this from the size...I guess we could estimate the size at feeding time....so I'm trying to get a grip on how much to feed....and then if we get a good algae bloom I can maybe feed the pellets at half the usual rate I guess unless I can get some better guidance on this which I might not be able to find since the plan we have so far is sort of a bastardized cross between two methods.

We will be growing pla duk this year and I'm trying to get the wife motivated to locate some breeding tilapia but she seems to think that this makes life to complicated or something so I'm primarily working on the best thing for the pla duk with the idea that tilapia could be worked into the equation primarily to convert plants to fry for the pla duk to eat...and with an eye on doing full on mixed breed culture in the future......if I can get the wife motivated...I'm pretty much busy doing rice since this year I'm doing 3 rai of paddy on my own for the first time and I'm keeping that as my main focus....my vegetable garden has been sorely neglected......

Chownah