Thread: Fish-farming questions and ideas.

Originally Posted by Dalton

Well well well, Tsicar is very gifted in the art of stabbing people in the back, that much I can say. Regarding his knowledge of fishfarming, then it all seem to be words on paper, I've seen his farm in Thailand and that looked kind of different.
I never said that I dont make mistakes, ofcause I do, but I'm the kind of man who try to do things in real life, not just writing about it. Many things need to be changed in my farm and I've learned from mistakes, and still I will make mistakes...It's called life...And life do go on, also for you Tsicar and I hope that your attack on me, has made you feel better about your life.

firstly, my posts were not an attack on you, personally, simply an attempt to prevent would-be aquaculturists on this forum from making the same mistakes.
there is nothing wrong with making mistakes.
..................i think i made one myself, once!
and if you look back through my posts, i think you will find that i have published every one that i made regards fishfarming, to prevent others from following the same expensive learning curve.

BUT:

there IS something wrong with making OTHER, UNSUSPECTING PEOPLE PAY FOR YOUR MISTAKES. (you know what i am talking about)

i have no intention of turning this into a shitfight, so i will drop this right now and i will not reply to anything that you post that is not related to aquaculture.
you are welcome to continue by pm if you wish. (thanks for the last one, btw)

Dalton, I tried tp PM you, but being a new member, I do not have access to send them yet. You seem to be one of the members who has quite a bit of experience and I would like to pick your brain on the subject of what type of media to use in my filter. Please PM me and I can get your email address.

Thanks

BillyBobThai

^ 'nuff said.

This is a great thread - mostly because it contained a lot of information both in what to do, how to do it, and what to avoid.

I have a friend (Thai, of course), who wants to farm fish -- who stupidly went ahead, got a loan from the bank on her farmland, and on the advice of the local fish farm store (yeah, you know where this is going), had four ponds dug out that she spent all the money on, and now has no money left to buy fish. Sounds classic, doesn't it? Budgeting or pre-planning being unheard of to Thai 'business' people.

She claims the local store will teach and show her all that needs to be done -- obviously, based on the advice so far, I am less than convinced.

Obviously, she asked me for an additional 30,000 Baht (translation: 120,000 Baht) to 'buy fish'. Fortunately, I 'have no money'.

I am going to send a friend up there to check out what she has done so far, and get some basic idea, though my expectation is:

- she wasted too much money she could have used intelligently if she had asked for advice BEFORE listening to some local who just wanted her money.

- far more needs to be invested now to set everything up the right way.

- I might as well flush the money down the drain, if I expect that things will run smoothly unless I'm present 24/7 over the next year, to make sure it doesn't get screwed up again.

Seems to me, at first glance, the money would be better spent on hookers and bar beers.

Originally Posted by BillyBobThai

My question is, what to use for my media in the bio-filter?
Thanks

What about bottle tops? They're food safe, have plenty of surface area, light and a recycling yard should sell them for FA.

Shade cloth may contain fire retardants, plastics in general can have some real nasties so you should be careful. I think this is worth discussing.

Originally Posted by DaffyDuck

^ 'nuff said.



She claims....

Seems to me, at first glance, the money would be better spent on hookers and bar beers.

Does she like hookers and bar girls?

Originally Posted by Smithson

Originally Posted by BillyBobThai

My question is, what to use for my media in the bio-filter?
Thanks

What about bottle tops? They're food safe, have plenty of surface area, light and a recycling yard should sell them for FA.

Shade cloth may contain fire retardants, plastics in general can have some real nasties so you should be careful. I think this is worth discussing.

i had no plomplems with the shadenet. the bottletops are really good but you need tons of them. that shitty blue netting they sell in thailand also works fine, although it seems to clog up after a while. old nylon thrownets, in fact anything that has a large surface area. i think someone once mentioned hair-curlers.would be a good one, too.
the only advantage to buying commercially available biomedia is that you may end up getting away with using a smaller filter, but i do not know if the extra cost will be justified.

Originally Posted by DaffyDuck

^ 'nuff said.

This is a great thread - mostly because it contained a lot of information both in what to do, how to do it, and what to avoid.

I have a friend (Thai, of course), who wants to farm fish -- who stupidly went ahead, got a loan from the bank on her farmland, and on the advice of the local fish farm store (yeah, you know where this is going), had four ponds dug out that she spent all the money on, and now has no money left to buy fish. Sounds classic, doesn't it? Budgeting or pre-planning being unheard of to Thai 'business' people.

She claims the local store will teach and show her all that needs to be done -- obviously, based on the advice so far, I am less than convinced.

Obviously, she asked me for an additional 30,000 Baht (translation: 120,000 Baht) to 'buy fish'. Fortunately, I 'have no money'.

I am going to send a friend up there to check out what she has done so far, and get some basic idea, though my expectation is:

- she wasted too much money she could have used intelligently if she had asked for advice BEFORE listening to some local who just wanted her money.

- far more needs to be invested now to set everything up the right way.

- I might as well flush the money down the drain, if I expect that things will run smoothly unless I'm present 24/7 over the next year, to make sure it doesn't get screwed up again.

Seems to me, at first glance, the money would be better spent on hookers and bar beers.

best option for her is to do tilapia on greenwater system.
even if she DID get the money together to buy the fingerlings, she would still need more to feed them .
greenwater system equals almost free feed. there is plenty info available on internet regarding this method.

Originally Posted by Smithson

Originally Posted by BillyBobThai

My question is, what to use for my media in the bio-filter?
Thanks

What about bottle tops? They're food safe, have plenty of surface area, light and a recycling yard should sell them for FA.

Shade cloth may contain fire retardants, plastics in general can have some real nasties so you should be careful. I think this is worth discussing.

Bottle caps can be used, and I think Dalton had told me that he had used them at one time. They would have to be enclosed in something, netting, large PVC pipes, baskets. I tried to use some in the experimental biofilters, whose picture I posted, but I found that they tend to want to float away quickly whenever an opportunity arises. I think they are best suited to be used as filtering material in the mechanical filters. Or at least that is what I am going to try to do with them, since I already have a bunch.
Shade cloth could have nasties in it, I don't know, but seemed to have worked for us. I also believe that the surface area of shade cloth is much greater, I have a list of these medias in this PC someplace where it states that. We loosely rolled up sections of the shadecloth , and staked these into plastic crates, ends up, allowing air spaces between the crates and around them. Each roll was 10M long by about 30 centimetre high. Each basket had about10 to 12 rolls in it. Thats a lot of surface area. Here is a picture of this:



The top crate had, half inch PVC pipe cut 1 inch long, with holes drilled around it's side. This was done so that the water comming off the pumps would be better distributed, to bounce the water around to get it to hold more air. Here is a picture of this:



And here is one of the biofilters being set up:




Guess I should of rotated that. At least I'm getting the pictures on here now. Much easier following KM's Picture Posting Tutorial , with Pictures. Thanks KM.

The bottle tops could be bought from the recyclers, either those that collect the rubbish or the from the big centers where they have mountains of bottles.

For the filters, rather than having water run through them, wouldn't a loop syphon that fills and then drains provide a larger surface area? Because it fills the whole containers rather than just running thru?

The black plastic bath shown below may also contain nasties, doubt it is food safe. It may be from recylced plastic.


I bought some Plah Nin and Tuptim that are supposed to be same sex from a well known place in Prachinburi. Now I have 100's of fingerlings, not sure what happened.

^ First you have to have green water and with a bunch of Tilapia, it wont be green for long.

Originally Posted by Smithson

The bottle tops could be bought from the recyclers, either those that collect the rubbish or the from the big centers where they have mountains of bottles.

For the filters, rather than having water run through them, wouldn't a loop syphon that fills and then drains provide a larger surface area? Because it fills the whole containers rather than just running thru?

The black plastic bath shown below may also contain nasties, doubt it is food safe. It may be from recylced plastic.


I bought some Plah Nin and Tuptim that are supposed to be same sex from a well known place in Prachinburi. Now I have 100's of fingerlings, not sure what happened.

You are correct that the plastic may contain nasties, but I don't know. I don't worry about it, especially since this was an experiment, and it worked. It taught me many things. The set ups being built are entirely constructed of cement and steel where things are so much harder to change than these various plastic basins, whose systems went through various physical changes. What I learned from these 2 systems, we incorporated into the farm my wife is building. I also learned a lot by reading, and by visiting Dalton's Farm. But I have been reading about it for a dozen years. Here's a link to Biological filters.
BIOLOGICAL FILTERS FOR AQUACULTURE

^ Didn't mean to accuse you of poisoning ppl, just thought it was worth a mention for others.

Would also be interested in your opinion of loop siphons and systems that fill and drain, the discussion on AP forums is that they provide better filtration because the of great contact with the media.

LOOP SIPHON

Thanks to all for your inputs thus far. Just what I was looking for. The bio-filter seems to be one of the most important parts of a sucesfull aqua culture project.

Thanks mellow, for the link on filters.

TSICAR when I have come up with what my system will look like, I would like to
email you some drawings for you thoughts.

Thanks to all

BillyBobThai

^ I'm not familiar with loop siphons. The water needs to move at a pretty good clip in an RAS. The water in the system needs to go though the filters ( recirculated) every couple of hours or so, a topic of much discussion. That loop may be quite a slowing factor. I did see a loop siphon on a link one time, where they used it to get a better constant flow however. Much larger pipe or hose used in that loop and used for a different purpose. Contact time is also a debate, many say the bacteria do the job upon contact. There are some who believe that by recirculating some of the water back into the biofilter it multiplies the effect of the process. If the filter is packed with media and is flouded, air has to be pumped in and the media aggitated, or else you just have a basic filter chamber with filtering material in it. A lot will depend on the stocking rate, having a few fish, enought for the plants to grow and to also use as dinner, as compared to raising fish for sale.I suppose one has to decide upon a balance of what works best for you, and the system your making. Is that an embossed radiation stamp on that blue barrel?

Originally Posted by BillyBobThai

Thanks to all for your inputs thus far. Just what I was looking for. The bio-filter seems to be one of the most important parts of a sucesfull aqua culture project.

Thanks mellow, for the link on filters.

TSICAR when I have come up with what my system will look like, I would like to
email you some drawings for you thoughts.

Thanks to all

BillyBobThai

An overview on sizing a biofilter:
BIOLOGICAL FILTERS FOR AQUACULTURE

^ Thanks for that, from what you've written doesn't seem like they would have much place in aquaculture.

BTW, that's not my system, just a pic of the internet. Dunno about the radiation logo, but I doubt the hose is food safe.

Originally Posted by BillyBobThai

Thanks to all for your inputs thus far. Just what I was looking for. The bio-filter seems to be one of the most important parts of a sucesfull aqua culture project.

Thanks mellow, for the link on filters.

TSICAR when I have come up with what my system will look like, I would like to
email you some drawings for you thoughts.

Thanks to all

BillyBobThai

will gladly help if i can, BUT
i am no expert on biofiltration.
everybody will have their own favourite design or system., and what might work for one guy, may not work for another. best you can do is to glean as much information as you can, study the principles and chemistry, and try figure out what will work for you.
mellow uses trickle towers successfully. i prefer multiple chamber systems. neither of us is wrong. his system works for him and my system worked for me.
best is to start off small, as you said you were going to do,
with one tank, then experiment and monitor, learn and extend, push the envelope until you know what you have is working and what the limitations are, then share the information with the rest of us.
in this way we can all learn and pick up tips, and improve.
nobody is just going to copy someone's design, stock up to the max. and become successfull overnight. whatever you do will be a learning curve, some heartbreak, plenty of frustration, and, hopefully, finally, success.
don't give up!

Any point in keeping ponds covered by some kind of translucent tarps - mainly to keep birdshit out of the water, to protect against some of the disease factors and carriers?

Originally Posted by DaffyDuck

Any point in keeping ponds covered by some kind of translucent tarps - mainly to keep birdshit out of the water, to protect against some of the disease factors and carriers?

no, the birdshit will do no harm, just adds some fertilizer for algal growth.
disease only seems to become a factor in systems where the fish are stressed by poor water quality and/or overstocking.
almost ALL fish die-offs can be ascribed to poor water quality, or depleted oxygen levels. disease is hardly ever a factor, and when it is, the cause comes back to water quality issues in most cases.

Originally Posted by DaffyDuck

Any point in keeping ponds covered by some kind of translucent tarps - mainly to keep birdshit out of the water, to protect against some of the disease factors and carriers?

Here is a place where you can read about ponds:
Pond Construction and Filtration - Koiphen.com

The principles in Aquaculture remain the same. It's up to you how you apply them.

The bird shit is actually beneficial to your pond.

Originally Posted by mellow

Originally Posted by DaffyDuck

Any point in keeping ponds covered by some kind of translucent tarps - mainly to keep birdshit out of the water, to protect against some of the disease factors and carriers?

The principles in Aquaculture remain the same. It's up to you how you apply them.

.

exactly.
and you can ignore the known science at your peril.