The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

mellow

^ Yes, the technology can be copied with available improvised materials, and there are quite a few forums with Do it yourself sections, which show you that particular persons' construction. These examples help a lot. I myself have not found it to be cheap however. I suppose it's cheap, when comparing it to the 19 million price tag, shown for the least expansive system, constructed by the above company.
Achieving maximum stocking and grow out rates is a lot easier for a scientist with grant money, free manpower with degrees in fishery management, and all the bells and whistles, then more ordinary folks. Keeping it more mechanical, cleaning filter chambers and filtration media, 5-10% daily water changes, maybe a foam fractioner, and flushing out sediment at the bottom of tanks should give you about 60% of their stocking rates.
Probably a big factor to look out for is to not get too greedy, by overstocking and killing everything off, fish and bio filter.

Smithson

One thing you will always have a problem with is finding or training skilled staff. Even if you get them, there's a very good chance they will leave at short notice. Clever Thais either work for themselves or move from one job to another as it suits them.

Even if you could do everything yourself, it's not legal. Feeding fish is OK, but electric timers, switches etc. is a bit complicated for farm laborers. If you left the place for a weekend away, you could come back to dead fish and no staff.

mellow

^ Quite right Smithson. We have lived here 8 yrs. and I can't even count the number of people who have worked here for my wife. Many don't stay after they realize that there is actually work to be done, others have to be shown where the gate is. About 10% work well, but as you said, they find something else they want to do, or just go into retirement after working a few months.

Smithson

^ After 5 yrs we have quite a hard working team 90% female, but that is in Bkk and they are all supporting family back home. Also, we've given up trying to train them, all they want is simple repetitive work without responsibility or leadership.

Our experience outside Bkk has not been good. I'd be happy to pay someone responsible and hardworking double the going rate, problem is they just don't seem to be available.

mellow

^ Besides material and construction cost, that is a very good reason to keep things simple and easily done.

stutter

We have just started fish farming and yesterday we placed 3000 "Pla Nim" into our 2 Rai "pond". I will look through this thread and read on... Im now a fish farmer after all!

Nawty

Anyone know where to buy Barramundi in the PakChong, Saraburi or Nakohon Nayok areas ??

The Nam Sai place everyone seems to recommend does not stock them anymore. We visited this place a few months ago and they had none, missus called a few days ago and was told they do not have it anymore.

__________________
'Owner of 'Arse of the year 2008'......

First after the winner... 'International Architect of the year 09'

melthorn

Working for an importer in th UK but retiring to Thailand in December have seriously thought about this.
Main problem is disease and finding a local vet with fish knowledge. Few and afr between in UK. Problem in Thailand is the warm water and parasites grow quickly in the warm.
Have also considered tropical fish farming. Tested water last trip and ideal for breeding many species.
More to follow when I get out there,

tsicar

what kind of fish are you importing, and are you importing from thailand?
disease should not be a problem:
i expect if live fish, that the problems are picked up during the stress of transport or the handling at that time.

mellow

Parasites and disease are also a concern of mine. Maybe tsicar who raised catfish here can tell us about his experience in this. Dalton could likewise get in on this, he raised both, catfish and Tilapia, and I know he has encountered disease problems.
Depending on the type of system will also restrict you to certain remedies, so as not to destroy the bacteria in your bio-filter for instance.

tsicar

disease would not normally manifest itself in a good system, and poor water quality is mostly to blame as the stressor which makes the fish susceptable to disease.
almost everything you will encounter is reasonably easily treated by dosing with formalin, but you are correct: you don't want it getting to your biofilter.
best advice is to monitor your water quality carefully, avoid stress and correct the problem before it manifests itself in an outbreak of disease.
by the way, do not waste your mony on the locally available, popular and expensive thai "cure-all" (oxytetracycline based)
most of the problems you could encounter wil be fungal, and the oxy will not help. use formalin if you really have to.
salt can also help, especially in tilapia: helps restore the protective layer of slime which can be compromised during handling; cheap and good for use as a prophylactic, plus has benefits in combatting problems related to high nitrite levels, but do not use salt on catfish, as they do not tolerate high salinity levels well.

prevention is always better and cheaper than cure.

mellow

^ Read some articles about using salt. Here's one on Formalin:

VM77/VM061: Use of Formalin to Control Fish Parasites

smeden

h0w are u dalton back in thailand?

cambtek

Some good info here.I have a block on the bassac river near phnom penh where I could build a netted pond in the river to grow fish.
However I would only have water about 8 months of the year,in the dry the water disappears and I have a huge sand bank in front of the place.
Could I grow fish successfully in eight months?

tsicar

you could grow out catfish in around 45 days, but not in your nets.
with high quality feed and good fingerlings, you could probably do two batches in that time (3to4 months growout) depending on water temperature.

cambtek

Thanks for that,but what do you mean about not in your nets?
I can create a netted pond as large as I want.
How many catfish to the cubic metre?
How much does it cost to feed them.
The beauty of the river is that I have a continual flow of water to get rid of the nutrients.

tsicar

the 45 days thing you could achieve in a recirculating system where you have absolute control of all the variables. it is an ideal situation, total control of water quality, ph and temperature.
the nets (i used them at first), if made from that blue "paa-faa" shit, do NOT flow water after a short while: algae and slime clog them very sucessfully (if you don't believe me, try lift one out of the water after a month of rearing)
stocking density:
dunno, i used to, but i dumped the system after a while (HUGE losses): i would suggest not much more than the thai ag dept recommends for a normal pond. (pretty low)
even in a "perfect" recirculating system in thailand, your profit margin is probably around 10000 baht per ton, if you do not sell to the retailers.
you are very unlikely to come across good quality fingerlings in thailand, unless you breed them yourself, good quality feed is expensive, and unless you can afford the learning curve, (a few years of losses) i would suggest you rather relax on your porch and admire the view of the tranquil river flowing by........

sorry if i sound like a pessimist, but i have tried all the options, and the closest i ever got to making any money at all was the recirculating system, controlled environment on high protien feed, plus (and this was the key), producing my own fingerlings and discarding the non-performers (around 70%) which you will buy from the thais and waste your money on.
i can only speak for catfish, and mellow has experience in tilapia,
perhaps the figures work out better for them.
or else you could look up on tv,a lying (or confused) asshole called redbullhorn, who, in spite of his obvious lack of training, has confounded the known science and made huge profits out of farming catfish in temperature ranges where they will NOT grow, uses cheap feed that will NOT sustain growth, sells to wholesalers at far below the rearing price, and buys non-performing, third grade fingerlings from a thai rip-off hatchery.
evidently he has discovered something that scientists and biologists have missed out on during the past 40 years or so that the rearing of catfish has been studied, and perhaps when he publishes a paper or two about his amazing sucesses, the universities of the world will find out that all their research was in vain, and recommend this genius' rearing methods....
in the meantime i suggest you do a lot of research and spend a lot of time with a calculator, pencil and paper.
making money from fishfarming is a far cry from simply stocking a pond or a net and throwing in feed for a while. if it was THAT simple, then all of the thais would be doing it, instead of just concentrating on rearing buffalo..........

mellow

Hello tsicar, in about 2 weeks we are going to start making spraybars for the biofilters. Wondering what kind of input you may have on this. In our experiments we had some issues with holes getting clogged, also the 2 pumps we will be using will have about 1400 L/M output at a 5M head. Would like to have as much of that water as possible, yet still have a good spray, in all 3 biofilters. Appreciate any constructive discussion on this. What has been your experience on this. Also thinking of rigging up the spraybars, so they can be taken out, replaced by a spare while getting cleaned.

tsicar

sorry, mellow.
i never used trickle towers coz i could not figure how i could get the volume of water i needed through a spraybar.
i did, however use home-made spray nozzles at inlet to my biofilter to vigorously disturb surface for oxygenation.
simple 40mm blue pvc heated and squashed down then cooled. left a slot about 5mm wide at the end.
made a manifols of tee's and elbows, but did not cement the joints, so that nozzles could be aimed independently. each one had a cheap pvc valve so that i could balance pressures between obviously rough nozzles.
don't know if you could adapt something that could work for you, good news is that they never clogged.

oh, i also gravity fed my tanks via a similar manifold, made of 5 inch pvc. no taps, but uncemented inlets meant i could balance them exactly by simply swivelling them independently higher or lower, and timing each with a bucket to get the required flow for each tank. a tank with higher density stocking could then easily be fed extra water, calculate the exact flow needed, time how long it takes to fill a bucket of known volume, and adjust flow accordingly.

mellow

Thanks for your reply tsicar. I'm gonna do the spray bars for now, see how they perform then go from there. Got 3 biofilter towers up for this system, will check flow rate prior to adding media, spray bars, and after. See how close I can match the initial flow rate. It will be about 2 weeks till this happens, will let you know how it works out.