The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

baldrick

was the plastic welded or have you just pegged it in the pond ?

dirtydog

My pond doesn't lose water, its about 50 meters by 10 meters, no lining though.

Smithson

It's PVC so it's glued as one big piece and then laid down. The guy helping us wanted to cut small pieces and then glue them in place, to avoid having folds - very bad idea.

A concrete ring is put around the top, this needs to be level. I watched while they set it using the water tube, it looked fine. Problem was one of the guys didn't know how to use the tube and didn't bother saying so. Instead he just kept saying 'OK' and moving onto the next section. The whole thing was seriously out of level and had to be redone.

Making sure the glue has a decent seal and that the top is level is most important. From my experience, Thais always rush things and never double check, so I'd check it myself.

I did a bit of searching on the net, but the best info came from this thread http://teakdoor.com/building-in-thailand-famous-threads/16604-buadhai-builds- (Buadhai Builds A Pond)a-pond.html (Buadhai Builds A Pond)

Our pond is much bigger than Buadhai's, but we used the same principles and are quite happy. The pond and bamboo sala cost around 28K, including the pumps and we've still got heaps of PVC left. Considering the climate here, it pays to have a nice outdoor area so it's money well spent.

The fish come straight to us for a feed, which will make things ez in a few months when they're big enough to go straight on the BBQ.

andysmith

Which fish would you reccomend for a quick return/turnover we have jusi acquired a 320m x80m lake with 3 50m x50m ponds as well we intend to turn it into a fishing park and resort in 2 years time but want to fish farm in the meantime while building and development goes on.Nice to have some money coming in while we are outlaying on building restaraunt and bungalows etc.How quick would pangassius grow from one inch to market size same with tilapia any idea on prawns etc, How many harvests per year????? Thanks.

tsicar

don,t waste your time and money trying to farm fish in your dams. you will be hard pressed just to break even in the time-period you have mentioned, and the learning curve alone will take longer than that. better off to stock your pangasius etc in the meantime: they should be a reasonable size by the time your park opens.
fastest growers would be pladouk, but you WILL NOT make a profit if you do it thai style, and you would probably never make a profit out of them farming the thai stuff in an earth pond in thailand..
feeding pellets in an earth pond with thai fingerlings will break your back, financially, and feeding them on anything else available locally (eg rotten chicken) will result in a year minimum of growth to a 40% average af the 30-50%survivors of your original stocking, if you are lucky, of small, but saleable size fish, which will NOT bring you a return on your investment. (you would be better off nursing sick buffalo!)
i wish you well with your venture, and please take this advice in the spirit it was meant, ie that of having your best interests at heart.

mellow

tsicar, it does seem however that some Thais manage to make money off this business. But maybe its an illusion.

tsicar

the only thais who make (a little bit of") money on it are the ones that use by-products of other farming operations for feed.
eg the chickenfarmer throws all his dead chickens in a pond to feed the pladouk and gets a small harvest once a year.
cp also "sets up farmers" for tilapia reared in cages on rivers, and they virtually become slave labour, getting trapped into contracts where cp is the only winner.
there is also the "government loan" scam, but none of these guys make what one of us would call: "money"
of course, if you speak to the thais, you will find that raising fish is easy and profitable, and every one of them is an expert and is making a fortune. (the "face" thing)

9s

mellow

Well someone must be doing something right, it seems to me that Thailand exports many farmed fish products. As does Vietnam, and other SE Asian countries.

Norton

Yep. Somebody is! Also note, Dalton was doing quite well in the chicken business before he was squeezed out by CP and converted to the fish farming thing.

mellow

^ I would think he was making money Norton. He had 34 of those big tanks going, and making his own feed.

Norton

Very little. Made some on local sales but barely enough to cover costs. I believe he only had a few of the 34 tanks producing. His plan was to expand with the idea of selling fresh rather than frozen into the middle east. He had a couple of investment partners but they pulled out of the arrangement.

__________________
There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Woodrow Wilson

mellow

^ Maybe should of concentrated on the local markets, people eat a lot of fish here. Tilapia goes for around 80 Baht a Kilo. Big C had an aquarium with a waterfall in it holding live Tilapia. I asked them what happened to it. They said that they couldn't git enough live fish to keep it running.

Norton

My sentiments exactly. Told him same. The idea of selling live to ME may have been valid but to do it profitably would take a huge investment. 80 baht per kg you say. This points out the volatility of fish (or any farming). A little over a year ago it was 45 baht. Nothing to say the price won't drop drastically again when supply catches up with demand.

mellow

What I noticed is that the price drops drastically for about 2 months after the local mud pond fish farmers try to get rid of their stock. I do believe however that there is a market for tank raised fish on a healthy diet. They taste better and are a better quality food source. There are many Thai people who are becoming conscious of the quality of food which they purchase.

tsicar

the middlemen make the money.
the fishfarming thing works very similar to the rice farming. very few farmers are making very much money.
normally subsistence farming would not produce enough to support an industry (i know that there are a few big ricefarming operations,) BUT:
you have in thailand a huge and efficient (and subsidised)transport industry, and just as the small ricefarmer can actually sell his ten bags of rice or so, make a small profit. normally he would not even be able to get the stuff to the market. same with the catfish. trucks run the entire length and breadth of the country, buying up a ton here, two tons at the next village, perhaps another 5 tons there.

i once went to a "large" cartfish operation near khorat.

the guy owns one of those battery chicken farms, and has around 30 ponds stocked with catfish.
in the warm months the chickens die like flies, and he grinds them up and mixes them with cassava waste, dries it and feeds the catfish on it.
he does not rotate the ponds, so has one harvest a year, continuously has to pump water when the ponds go "off" (now uses a windmill to save costs).
well if you work out the protien value of the feed you will find that it is not enough for a catfish to grow. he may as well throw the chickenshit in the ponds, as it has a higher protien value than his homemade feed. the reason his fish grow at all is that the crap he is feeding them is producing algae, and the fish are feeding on this, the zooplankton that comes with the algae, and on each other.
i was there when the wholesalers came to net his ponds (looking for overgrown fish to harvest hormone for spawning), and the whole year of rearing produced him only 8 tons.
about half the fish had to be thrown back because they were undersize (wrong thing to do, he should have destroyed them)
he was happy with the 256000 baht he got from the wholesaler. quite impressive for a thai farmer, and a lot of money for him. BUT
had he worked out his profit margin, he would have found out that he made no profit at all: labour, electricity, fingerlings and the feed for them for the first month until they were weaned onto the shit he was feeding would have eaten that all up, and remember: this guy is getting his "feed" for free!
he could easily have produced 10 to 20 tons for the year in just three tanks of 2m x1m, with a good biofilter, real feed and KNOWLEDGE, and he would have made a profit if he did it right.
there are hundreds of these type of operations in thailand, and it is the only reason they have an "industry" at all.

when he finally goes bust, there will be another 30 to take his place.
same for the buffalo and the scrawny cattle, and most of the small pigfarmers.
they try their hand, get a loan from the giovernment, go tits up and are replaced by the next sucker, but in the meantime the market is supplied, because the middleman and the transport is there .
i can't speak for the prawn and shrimp industry, and i know thailand exports a lot of this, but i would be surprised if it worked any differently.

mellow

^ Somewhat my take on it. But I believe there is money to be made with a good clean running operation, which delivers a quality product locally.
Check out A Visit to Dalton's fish farm. Interested in reading your responses after picking up my son from school.

tsicar

he made no money at all. he was into the bank for millions and into his investors for more. he had to shut it when the investors woke up and pulled the rug.

30 tanks wrong design for water exchange. wasting electricity running a bank of superchargers attatched to airstones, which made no difference to D.O levels
inefficient biofilter,far too small for 30 tanks resulting in high nitrite levels killing off all the fish as soon as they reached a certain size. feed was not giving him the protien needed for growout because the soya he was using was not UHT, meaning the 40% he thought he was getting was probably around 10. high labour costs, and an extravagant lifestyle killed his business.

tsicar

ALL dalton's fish were sold on the local market: his wife even had a permanent stall there.
you are right about the shortages (supplies from subsistence operators)

he was not producing he was buying wholesale and selling at a small profit. the fish in his tanks were not growing out.

tsicar

i DO agree that there is money to be made this way.I
yes, you will make more supplying the local market. the wholesalers will kill you off.
there is money to be made if you do it all right. in the tanks, about 10000baht per ton. don't know about the tilapia. probably greenwater would be best for profit.

tsicar

correct. and you can hold when the price is down, also no shortages, when the price is up.