Thread: Fish-farming questions and ideas.

I believe it's longer than that, a good few hours at least. It depends on how much oxygenated water they have.

Whether his 15 min/hour method is suitable for his pond really depends on how many fish he puts in it, and how large his bio-filter will be. It may be efficient enough.

Even if he does choose this method, I would definitely recommend that it's run 24/7 for the first month to get a healthy stock of bacteria in there to start with.

Again though, 24/7 and 365 days a year is advisable, as no doubt his pond will be quite well stocked.

I think the 15 min per hr is fine, this is one of the flood/drain methods used in AP, where the nitrogen cycle is very important.

The pond isn't that well stocked.

^ Its an Aquaponics forum, he posted the link either on this page or the last. By the way who sells these kind of supplies here in Thailand, Aquaponic supplies that is.

Thanks Mellow, I have heard the system mentioned before, didn't know it was called Aquaponics, interesting subject I'll have to read into it more.

On a slightly different note, anyone on this forum raising fish for the international pet trade?

I know there was a member that raised Discus but he doesn't post here very much.

Have a gander at this Mellow, hydroponics suppliers actually (come up on aquaponics search) but perhaps giving these people a ring could send you in the right direction.

THAILAND - Yellow Pages

Originally Posted by tjyflhol

Have a gander at this Mellow, hydroponics suppliers actually (come up on aquaponics search) but perhaps giving these people a ring could send you in the right direction.

THAILAND - Yellow Pages

Thanks for the link. I also remember someone doing Discus. At one time there where quite a few people joining in on Fish Farming discussions, here and over on TV.
For some reason that has stopped. I'm not doing Aquaponics myself, I have a friend who wants to hobby around with it, and I looked up a bunch of sites for him.
My wife is doing Tilapia, and she may want to do some Thai catfish, well see how it goes.

Originally Posted by mellow

^ Its an Aquaponics forum, he posted the link either on this page or the last. By the way who sells these kind of supplies here in Thailand, Aquaponic supplies that is.

Basically you just build the system yourself, using regular tanks, pumps etc. that you'd use for aquaculture. A lot of ppl use the blue barrels. It's not that difficult, but takes a bit of time. Would make a nice hobby, don't know about commercial though. If you go through the forum, there are some pretty resourceful ppl there.

Originally Posted by mellow

Originally Posted by tjyflhol

Have a gander at this Mellow, hydroponics suppliers actually (come up on aquaponics search) but perhaps giving these people a ring could send you in the right direction.

THAILAND - Yellow Pages

Thanks for the link. I also remember someone doing Discus. At one time there where quite a few people joining in on Fish Farming discussions, here and over on TV.
For some reason that has stopped. .

farming ornamental fish for export, or even just buying them locally and exporting at a profit is a good idea.
here in south africa, those gouramis the thais turn into pla-ra sell for around 160 baht each. if you can crack the market and get the logistics right, i think there is great potential.
i also read the discus thing (think he called himself "discusfarmer"), but he was not giving away too much info, so he probably had a bloody good little business going, and wanted to protect it.
work out feed costs, then price realised per kg, and it makes an whole lot more sense than screwing around farming catfish or tilapia for the peasants!

Discusfarm was his name I think.

farming ornamental fish for export, or even just buying them locally and exporting at a profit is a good idea.

Agreed, both could be profitable, but farming and exporting is the obvious way to go especially if dealing with rarer species and those that are found outside of Thailand.

here in south africa, those gouramis the thais turn into pla-ra sell for around 160 baht each. if you can crack the market and get the logistics right, i think there is great potential.

I can only speak from the UK point of view really, but the common kind of gouramis sell for about that and cheaper. And being one of the more aquarium fish they are cheap from the wholesalers in quantity, might only cost them 15-20 baht a fish direct from a supplier in S.E.Asia and a little bit more if shipped from Europe.

But if you follow the market, the new trend in aquariums and aquarium fish is nano tanks, small cubes averaging around 8-10" square and they stock small fish, and shrimps.

A lot of the fish they stock are small burmese species such as the Galaxy Rasbora. These were expensive when hey come on the market, and the wild stock soon depleted, but quite quickly there were calls for only captive bred stock to be bought. Fish like this are brought into the market on almost a monthly basis in Burma and Indonesia and the neighbouring regions. the Galaxy rabora is reletively cheap now though as they breed quite easily.



Another new one that has hit the market in the last couple of years is Sulawesi shrimps from Indonesia. Quite difficult to breed in aquarium conditions, so I guess if you could get a small farm of them going they could hold their value longer. The Galaxy Rasboras price would drop much quicker.



This is a type of snakehead (pla-chon), I think from India. They was selling for about 120 pounds retail on the web a few months ago. 2-3 inch snakehheads selling for 8000 baht retail. What you need to do is grab some from the source, farm them in Thailand, and get them shipped out before their price drops too quickly.



So many other exmaples as well but i will not bore you now.

Thailand has already got a huge exporting market for ornamental fish and you'll be undercut as a supplier of common species, but there is a niche market that has not been fully exploited yet.

This is the kind of exporting I mean, a website for a small country that deals in mainly wild caught fish from indonesia.

1st Leopard Aquatic - Indonesia Wild Caught Fish

I like fishes.

Originally Posted by tjyflhol

This is a type of snakehead (pla-chon), I think from India. They was selling for about 120 pounds retail on the web a few months ago. 2-3 inch snakehheads selling for 8000 baht retail. What you need to do is grab some from the source, farm them in Thailand, and get them shipped out before their price drops too quickly.

Snakeheads can be invasive, so there maybe heaps of regulations required for their import. Maybe not invasive in the UK, but could forsee a heap of other problems, if it's something you already know a lot about maybe it's a possibility.

My wife is only doing a local thing, she only wants to sell good quality fish around here. No worldwide export etc..
To do Aquaponics on a large scale, one would need a lot of land, and it would be more labor intensive. Don't they also use artificial light to increase daylight hours on the veggies? So they grow faster etc..?

Originally Posted by mellow

My wife is only doing a local thing, she only wants to sell good quality fish around here. No worldwide export etc..
To do Aquaponics on a large scale, one would need a lot of land, and it would be more labor intensive. Don't they also use artificial light to increase daylight hours on the veggies? So they grow faster etc..?

AP doesn't need much land at all, although it would require more labor. There's no need for lights. You also have to use test kits and sometimes additives like chelated iron. Many ppl, especially Thais, would struggle with these things.

I think the big advantage it has over regular aquaculture is you don't waste water, but there's heaps of water in Thailand. Veggie growth is fast for leafy varieties, but it wouldn't be enough to justify the extra expense over soil growing.

^ I agree with you Smithson, but it would be a good hobby for someone, plus it could provide a lot of good food. Good for a large family. It could be easily constructed with those red bricks, cement, and PVC, and it would be easy to add on too gradually.

Yes, definitely a good hobby, nice fresh organic food and fish. I priced it and for about 10k+ you could get a nice system going using round plastic tanks. Eventually you'd get your money back.

Due to water restrictions in Australia, a lot of retired and semi-retired ppl are doing it. It's suprising how resourceful ppl can be, especially in rural areas. Thailand is well suited 'cause it's tropical and has a well established aquaculture industry.

We have bought automatic feeding systems and gages from this norvegian company.
we have farms in sea.

AKVA group - UNI Recirculation System

They also suply recirculation systems worldwide and help with start up and financing
I think all they products are good but most expensive.
They service, support and spareparts delivery works too slow sometimes.

Originally Posted by muu uan

We have bought automatic feeding systems and gages from this norvegian company.
we have farms in sea.

AKVA group - UNI Recirculation System

They also suply recirculation systems worldwide and help with start up and financing
I think all they products are good but most expensive.
They service, support and spareparts delivery works too slow sometimes.

Looks very expensive. I suppose in Norway fish are more expansive then here. As well as labor. How much did the auto feeder cost? Labor here is anywhere from 150B to 250B/day.

Autofeeder costs from 70k-150k€ mounted.
Hole system should cost 400-1500k€ depend of size of farm/production
can buy only the filtters or just the parts what needed.
anyway its going to take time before money from investment returns.

If you selling to Thais, the price needs to be cheap. I think most Tilapia are grown in dug out ponds without any additional feed - just the green water system.

^ Which is fine, I guess, until you need to harvest the first wave of fish, which is then labor intensive because netting fish from a huge pond requires a lot of hands, and then having to pump the pond to clean it is even more cost intensive.

Originally Posted by muu uan

Autofeeder costs from 70k-150k€ mounted.
Hole system should cost 400-1500k€ depend of size of farm/production
can buy only the filtters or just the parts what needed.
anyway its going to take time before money from investment returns.

How does that translate into Baht?

Originally Posted by DaffyDuck

^ Which is fine, I guess, until you need to harvest the first wave of fish, which is then labor intensive because netting fish from a huge pond requires a lot of hands, and then having to pump the pond to clean it is even more cost intensive.

Agreed. Also if the labor pool is like around here, they might not even show up for work that day, to do any of that. You would have a drained pond, and you would be the only one there.