#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Farming & Gardening In Thailand >  >  My farm used for final project

## Dalton

About 6 month ago, I was contacted by the aqua-culture university here in Buri-Ram, the would like to use some of our tanks as a final project for there senior students. They were very keen to make it happen since our farm is probably the only super-intensive recirculation fish-farm in Thailand. 
However they needed to get approval and funding from the education department in Bangkok, well it took half a year but now they are here, and just that makes me very happy, this is one of the best moments in my life.  :Smile:

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## Texpat

Well done Dalts. Happy for you.

Why not invite a few select senior students to the happy-happy joy-joy in BR next week?

To express your jubilation, of course.

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## jizzybloke

Good on you Dalton, Leave the young girls alone though!

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## Dalton

^ That's gonna be hard dude, they love to dress in clothe there are several numbers to small   :Razz:

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## Spin

> senior students


Does this mean your fingers will stink of fish even more?

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## Dalton

^ Lets say that it's highly posible  :Smile:

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## jizzybloke

Will any be around in Jan when i come to see you?

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## hillbilly

Show us some pics! And good luck, I hope it works out for you, I am still afraid to try. :Sad:

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## sabang

You could well be setting up the most professional aquaculture operation in Thailand. You deserve to succeed, and likely will.  As Hillbilly says, some pic's would be appreciated.

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## jizzybloke

^hear hear i agree with that, Dalton is trying to make a difference so good luck to him!

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## Dalton

> Will any be around in Jan when i come to see you?


They should be, it's a three month project, I'll keep you updated on my progress with the females  :Smile:

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## Dalton

> You could well be setting up the most professional aquaculture operation in Thailand. You deserve to succeed, and likely will. As Hillbilly says, some pic's would be appreciated.


I'm to daft to post pictures, cant get it to work. But if I can email them to one of you guys, and get you to post them for me, if that's ok. I guess I can ask Mtd I have his email already.  :Smile:

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## Dalton

> I am still afraid to try


You really need to come down and have a look, you dont need to make it as big as I do. My pilot project was only 6 tanks, the price for that incl pumps and piping was around 130.000 baht.

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## Dalton

> Dalton is trying to make a difference


You hit the nail on the head  :Smile:

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## Wayne Kerr

Sounds great Dalton, let me know if you have any trouble getting rid of the bastards, I could probably take some off your hands ... the fish that is   :Smile:

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## Dalton

^ The fish...Yeah I'll bet  :Wink:  

I wish I had fish looking like this   :sexy:

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## tsicar

you deserve the recognition,dalton.
are they interested in the recirculation aspect of your operation, or just interested to know how you manage to keep on supplying quality fish on an ongoing and reliable basis in spite of the opposition and competition you have been up against?
do you think any of them might eventually start up their own recirculating systems, or will they revert to the thai system of subsistence farming after they realise how much work and knowledge they are going to have to invest in.
i don't know if their course covers water purification and biofiltration, but as you know, they may have to return to university for another couple of years just to get that part right.
cheers

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## Dalton

> you deserve the recognition,dalton.


My humple thanks tsicar. :Smile: 




> are they interested in the recirculation aspect of your operation, or just interested to know how you manage to keep on supplying quality fish on an ongoing and reliable basis in spite of the opposition and competition you have been up against?


They are interested in how the system works, since they have never seen one, only read about it, and that is two very different things. 
They also recon the enviromental friendly way to farm the fish, and the better taste of the meat. However I have made it clear to them that this kind of farming can only make money if you 100% integrated.




> do you think any of them might eventually start up their own recirculating systems, or will they revert to the thai system of subsistence farming after they realise how much work and knowledge they are going to have to invest in.


I doubt that very much, the investment for the average Thai is simply to big. They might want to go abroad and work on farms there, in Thailand it will still take years before this type of farming takes of.





> i don't know if their course covers water purification and biofiltration, but as you know, they may have to return to university for another couple of years just to get that part right.


They have water quality in there project as well, but if they understand how it works, that's a different story. As you know there is so much info about this on the internet, but none of the experts agree on the same idea, that makes it hard for anybody who want to start this kind of farming.

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## Marmite the Dog

Still waiting for the pictures...

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## Dalton

^ Wanker  :Smile:

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## November Rain

Dalts, you rival KW as a multi-multi-timer!!!  :Very Happy: 

Glad to hear things are going so well for you. And at least make sure the girls are over the age of consent (check ID cards) before going after them, will ya? 

BTW, if you're having trouble posting pics, try Klong Master's thread in Newbies. It worked for me. 

 :goldcup:

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## Dalton

> Dalts, you rival KW as a multi-multi-timer!!!


I'm much nicer than KW  :Smile:  And I spell better as well....





> And at least make sure the girls are over the age of consent (check ID cards) before going after them, will ya?


I'm a gentleman NR, thourghts like that would never cross my mind  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 





> BTW, if you're having trouble posting pics, try Klong Master's thread in Newbies. It worked for me.


Been there, dident work....I'm a daft cnut   :Sad:

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## BosseO

Get on with it, I'm interested.

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## Dalton

^ I'm sorry, cant figure out how to upload pictures, MtD are coming up for new-year then he cant teach me, so no pictures before next year.. :Sad:

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## Ratchaburi

Dalton it is good news  I am new to TDs & very interested in filtration & Bio filtration that work well.

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## Dalton

^ Great, I love to share info with people who has interest in this kind of fish farming, so if you have any questions then fire away.

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## Ratchaburi

Dalton I am a manufacture in Filtration & do not wish to take information
as this is your project, thank you any way

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## Dalton

^ Well its my farm, and the university has borrowed 6 of the tanks as the final project for there senior students, so there are no secrets here, except for what I dont want to tell. :Smile:

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## Dalton

> I am a manufacture in Filtration


What kind of filtration ? I might can use some of it.

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## Ratchaburi

I manufacture fibreglass pressure vessels swimming pool up to 1800mm DIA , house hold filter.
All the above with multi port valves

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## Dalton

^ Do you have any 8" PVC valves by any chance ???

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## Ratchaburi

No I dont have I can get them out of China or you get them here in Thailand 
If you need information I will send it to you on Wednesday.
How many do you need when do you need them.
Better I will get a price for you.

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## Ratchaburi

The valve out from China are about $50.00 USD

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## Dalton

> The valve out from China are about $50.00 USD


Great mate, what are the joints ? flange or glue. Is it a butterfly-valve or ball-valve ? I can PM you my email, if you have some pictures of them, I will need some 6" and 4" as well.

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## Ratchaburi

I just step out of the office & gone home for a cold beer.
I got your details I will you some information in the mornning.
all the larger valves are flange, I thin that 4" you can get glue in.

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## Ratchaburi

Also the larger valves are butterfly valve

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## Dalton

> Also the larger valves are butterfly valve


Thats ok, I need them for the drain from the tanks, so there is only 0.9m water-pressure or about 0.1bar. The flange valves, is there a part there goes on the 8" pipe, is that PVC welding or glue ?? If posible I would prefere glue, cause I dont have the PVC welding equipment. Thanks again for being very helpful.  :Smile:

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## blackgang

can you rent the PVC welding equipment here or do you have to buy it??

And how long to get it onto your site.?

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## Dalton

> can you rent the PVC welding equipment here or do you have to buy it??


I'm not sure if it can be rented, I've seen the local water-department have the welding equipment for PEH pipe, the mirrow welding.





> And how long to get it onto your site.?


The farm is in Buri-Ram, and the only thing I need to weld is the flange for the valves, all the rest is glued.

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## Dalton

This is a test just to show that retarded Danes can post pictures (even if it's not really me, but a fine English chappy doing it).





There. Nothing to it (just waiting for the help me pm....)

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## klongmaster

So these tanks are round...not the same as those described by the racistbackwards on t'other thread...

any reason for them being round...seems they take up a lot more space that way...

I would love to get up and visit you...my interest is because I'm a uni lecturer in the field of sustainability studies and feel there's lot to learn from what you're doing...

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## Dalton

^ The tanks are round, because it gives a better constant water-circulation.

Your are very welcome to visit the farm.

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## klongmaster

Cheers Dalton...hope you guys enjoy your New Years Eve party...

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## tsicar

hey, dalton. see you finally managed to post some pics.
i gotta admit that i can't bloody work out the pic thing either, but i will never admit it coz then people will think i am stupid!
 i gotta admit your fish are a lot prettier than mine.
cheers

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## forreachingme

Tilapia farmed fish, is 150 Pesos a kilo in the Phils...what is converted 100 Thb per kg approx....

The pelets are 500 Pesos for 50 kg, and they eat the fishes at 3 to 4 month over there...

Hong Kong pays high price for live Fishes as does Singapore...

Do you sale it mostly alive or killed ?


Your farm looks neat, good luck with that enterprise...

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## BosseO

More pics. Dalty, I'm a fishy person myself. Eating that is.

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## Dalton

This is a home-made drumfilter, to seperate the solids from the water, the filter-mesh is 50 micron.

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## Dalton

This is our mechanical extruder, it makes 125kg/h of floating pellets.



This is a gas-heated dryer.



This is the after-cooler.



This is the mixer for the raw material.

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## Marmite the Dog

> but a fine English chappy doing it


They really are the best.  :Smile:

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## discus2000

^right...  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 

dalton, how did you set up your farm... any DANCED or DANIDA funding in it for you?

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## Dalton

^ Ha ha ha ha ha.....I wish mate, but sadly no, it from our own means... :Smile:

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## Dalton

> Do you sale it mostly alive or killed ?


All is sold alive, 100&#37; fresh product... :Smile:

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## BosseO

Interesting stuff Dalton, beats my 900 l. aquarium a million times.

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## BosseO



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## jizzybloke

^what do they taste like?

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## Texpat

yes, I thought about your operation for hours on end when we met last.
I never once thought to ask the obvious question. Are they they the same tasteless products that shrimpfarms around the Kingdon claim to be the global answer? The shrimp are quite tasteless. I wonder if your product is superior...

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## Dalton

^ The taste of our fish is according to the people who buy them, sweet and tender with no belly-fat as the cage-raised fish has.
The water is in motion all the time, and so is the fish, that makes it more firm and healthy. We are in control of the water-parameters, so we can provide the best quality for the fish, compared to cage-farming who are stuck with the water there are in the river.

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## Dalton

> what do they taste like?


Ask BosseO about that... :Smile:  But looking at them, there aint to much meat...

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## BosseO

> Originally Posted by jizzybloke
> 
> what do they taste like?
> 
> 
> Ask BosseO about that... But looking at them, there aint to much meat...


Can't afford to eat them, you probably have to ask the natives around the Amazon river about the taste.

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## Ratchaburi

> ^ The taste of our fish is according to the people who buy them, sweet and tender with no belly-fat as the cage-raised fish has.
> The water is in motion all the time, and so is the fish, that makes it more firm and healthy. We are in control of the water-parameters, so we can provide the best quality for the fish, compared to cage-farming who are stuck with the water there are in the river.


 
Dolton it have been a long time since the last up date on the farm.
Sorry I have been busy with work soon I will see about the butterfly valve from China for you. :Wink:

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## Dalton

^ Point taken, been busy goofing around doing some research with Pengassius and Sea-Bass.
So far the test from the uni is going fine, there results are positive, however they still dont quite understand how the system works, but they're getting there slowly.  :Smile:

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## Dalton

This is the trickle bio-filter for the first 17 tanks, total water volume 176m3 for that system.

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## Ratchaburi

> ^ Point taken, been busy goofing around doing some research with Pengassius and Sea-Bass.
> So far the test from the uni is going fine, there results are positive, however they still dont quite understand how the system works, but they're getting there slowly.


Dalon your bio filter are very large, the 176m3 is the flow rate 24 hours.
Have you look at a bio uplift filters
To me the bio uplift is more simple ( I don't know much about water treatment for fish farming) only swimming pool & house hold water.
I have been asking my Engineers to do some research on the bio uplift filter.
But like every thing in Thailand tomorrow & tomorrow never comes.
Maybe one day the will finish the job.

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## Dalton

^ In this system the 176m3 circulate through the bio-filters every 4 hours, so the total of 1.056m3 per day. The other system we have does it every 2 hours, total 2.112m3 per day. We change roughly 10&#37; of the water per day.

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## tsicar

> Originally Posted by Dalton
> 
> 
> ^ Point taken, been busy goofing around doing some research with Pengassius and Sea-Bass.
> So far the test from the uni is going fine, there results are positive, however they still dont quite understand how the system works, but they're getting there slowly. 
> 
> 
> Dalon your bio filter are very large, the 176m3 is the flow rate 24 hours.
> Have you look at a bio uplift filters
> ...


everybody has their own favoured system. if you are talking UPFLOW i would say that the trickle tower is far superior, since the bacteria are exposed to highly oxygenated water, allowing for a far bigger colony of bacteria to be supported.
remember, too, that the bacteria needed for the conversion of nitrites to nitrates are AEROBIC, and oxygen is the key to the whole equation. 
if you were talking about an AIRLIFT system, of course the problem is eliminated.

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## hillbilly

Your trickle bio-filter is simply amazing! I'm jealous!  :Smile:

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## Dalton

^ Dont be mate, build a small system to try it out, aint that expensive.. :Smile:

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## Dalton

Here are a picture of some tanks in operation.

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## jizzybloke

Might be a stupid question but...
What does the water get filered through, do you have different layers of filtration, how often do you change or renew filters or layers?

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## Ratchaburi

everybody has their own favoured system. if you are talking UPFLOW i would say that the trickle tower is far superior, since the bacteria are exposed to highly oxygenated water, allowing for a far bigger colony of bacteria to be supported.
remember, too, that the bacteria needed for the conversion of nitrites to nitrates are AEROBIC, and oxygen is the key to the whole equation. 
if you were talking about an AIRLIFT system, of course the problem is eliminated.[/quote]



Dalton this is the type of filter I will look at when the Engineer get of there Dootttt & do some research diametre X Height, water flowrate & air flowrate required.
Many company manufature a simple count-current protein foam fractctionator.
At a price $$$$$$$$$$, but the cost are not that high to manufacturte.
I have been manufacturing swimming pool filter in Thailand for 2 years now trying to sell to the Thai swimming pool builders.
No they are not interested, a very large American company come to make a deal with us & the American company sells to the Thai pool builder ?  :Confused: 
I can not work out the logic it.

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## tsicar

> 


ok, so the water is oxygenated. i don't see any biomedia, though. are they using an "activated sludge" type system here? ie where the solids in the water actually act as the media? it is interesting. air would have to be pumped in, though, adding to the running cost, so it would have to compensate for higher running costs by being more efficient. let us know how it works when you build one. 
good luck.

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## Ratchaburi

OK the sludge is removed by sand filter the same pump is used for the airlift filter.
The amount of air is only small ( so I have been told) I think that the media is inside the tank, not sure.
I manufacture sand filters, I like to look at Bio filter, I would like to build a test unit & see . As all the ones on the market are expensive

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## Dalton

> Dalton this is the type of filter I will look at when the Engineer get of there Dootttt & do some research diametre X Height, water flowrate & air flowrate required. Many company manufature a simple count-current protein foam fractctionator. At a price $$$$$$$$$$, but the cost are not that high to manufacturte. I have been manufacturing swimming pool filter in Thailand for 2 years now trying to sell to the Thai swimming pool builders. No they are not interested, a very large American company come to make a deal with us & the American company sells to the Thai pool builder ? I can not work out the logic it.


What you have there is what we call a protein-skimmer, the air-bubbles are used to remove particles less than 10-40 micron, the particles will be caught by the bubbles and brought up to the surface where they will turn into a white/brown form there will come out on the over-flow on the top of the tank.
Those skimmers we build ourself, they are to expensive to buy, for normal people.. :Smile:

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## Dalton

> Might be a stupid question but... What does the water get filered through, do you have different layers of filtration, how often do you change or renew filters or layers?


The water first get to a drum-filter, there remove all solids over 50 micron, then you can run it through protein-skimmers like Ratchaburi have posted, then it runs to your bio-filter, it removes the nitrite and ammonia there are toxid to the fish.

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## bar dog

I am reading this and while it is way out of my league to consider I find it a fascinating thread. Dalton please keep us posted on your progress. I for one would be very interested to read more and especially how it could be adapted on a smaller scale for home based sufficiency with some limited stock for sale. Quite a few years ago I read up a lot about permaculture and became very interested in it.

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## Dalton

^ It can be done on small scale, I did that with a pilot-project back in 2006, it was 6 tanks, a settlement tank, bio-filter and air-pump. The whole construction price with pumps and all was 130.000 baht.  :Smile: 

Here's a pic of it.

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## jizzybloke

> ^ It can be done on small scale, I did that with a pilot-project back in 2006, it was 6 tanks, a settlement tank, bio-filter and air-pump. The whole construction price with pumps and all was 130.000 baht.


How many tanks ect.. do you have now?

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## smeden

looking your pics i look forward to wisit your farm and hear your mening to my ideas in the past i have worked on building factories that make pellets to feed salmon and trout in norway maybe we can make some thing that works together

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## Dalton

> How many tanks ect.. do you have now?


At this point we have 57 tanks in operation, the expantion is going slowly due to lack of capital.

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## bar dog

> Originally Posted by jizzybloke
> 
> How many tanks ect.. do you have now?
> 
> 
> At this point we have 57 tanks in operation, the expantion is going slowly due to lack of capital.


Dalton are you buying your fish stock as fingerlings or hatching your own?

Curious as to how many fish you have and the ages.

Bar Dog

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## Dalton

^ At pressent time we buy the fish when they are 25-28 days old, just after the sex-reversal is done, then we put them in nursery ponds for about 2 month or until the fish reach 50-75grams, then they go into the tanks and stay there for about 4 month, ending up with a final weight around 600grams each.

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## bar dog

^ these are Tilpea (spelling?) or do you sell a variety of fish?

I can get fingerlings from the government office near Doi Saket outside of Chiang Mai. If my partner buys then the price is less than one third for me because she is Thai. And that is the OFFICIAL price not just something made up by them.

We have the room and thought about just digging a dam and stocking it with catfish for our own use. I want to put a sala out in the middle and go fishing ah lah the infamous Edgewater Hotel in Seattle. Red Snapper anyone?

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## Dalton

^ They are called Tilapia, and you can get them in black or red colour.

We sell only them at the moment, but we are testing Pengassius as well and later we will try wit sea-bass.

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## bar dog

> ^ They are called Tilapia, and you can get them in black or red colour.


 What colour do the customers prefer? Is there any other differences between the two coloured fish in terms of size, growth rates, health etc.



> We sell only them at the moment, but we are testing Pengassius as well and later we will try wit sea-bass.


Will you need to do a new filtration system for the salt water? Will you use natural salt water ie from the sea or make your own?

Jumping back and please excuse me if you have already gone through this but you are Scandinavian? Did you do this there?

thanks and this is a really interesting thread please keep it going. I am learning a lot.

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## Dalton

> What colour do the customers prefer? Is there any other differences between the two coloured fish in terms of size, growth rates, health etc.


The black one is the easiest to grow, they are more resistant than the red, the fry of the red is more expensive than the black.





> Will you need to do a new filtration system for the salt water? Will you use natural salt water ie from the sea or make your own?


The Sea-bass will be able to grow in fresh-water, we do have a certent level of salinity pressent at all time.





> Jumping back and please excuse me if you have already gone through this but you are Scandinavian? Did you do this there?


Nope, my back-ground is piping engineer with speciallity in steel-mills and paper-mills. And yes I'm from Denmark.




> thanks and this is a really interesting thread please keep it going. I am learning a lot.


My pleassure.. :Smile:

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## Dalton

The rather cold weater now, has a big influence on our FCR, the fish has grown less than normal over the past one month, but eating the same amount of feed... :Sad:

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## Spin

What about the students involved in the finals projects?

Any photo's? :Wink:

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## Dalton

^ Sure...I can post some of the boys...The girls I keep for myself  :Smile:

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## Driventowin

A few years back I went to Hainan China with my wife she was doing some translation for a Thai professor they hired to go and give them some cultivating advice.. Shows you how much they still need to learn seeking Thai advice...

There were these fish farming ponds there that were just disgusting brown and stagnant, it looked like you could walk on the water..
I tried to explain to them how they could make as much money on those ponds as their fruit farming and produce far healthier fish which would also produce far more offspring by just aerating and installing water agitators for this purpose to begin with but they just kept saying no need...Fish only for local farmer, which still doesn't make any sense to me wouldn't local people want healthier and larger fish and more of them??

Not to mention the fact that they were completely overlooking a potentially large market and already had the resources right there in front of them to begin with..

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## Dalton

^ China is the biggest exporter of frozen Tilapia in the world.....They do have some health issues, and have been banned from the US market before, but they keep coming back in, cause there aint anybody who can supply the US market if China is out in the cold..

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## Dalton

Just had a visit from the university, the teachers had there bosses from Bangkok on a group-tour   :Smile: 









And they were all happy with the result... :Smile:

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## tsicar

> The rather cold weater now, has a big influence on our FCR, the fish has grown less than normal over the past one month, but eating the same amount of feed...


been racking my brains trying to figure this out. surely the fcr should not drop if they are feeding the same amount of the same feed? they should get more lethargic in the colder weather, and since they cannot control body temperature, so this is not where the energy is going. are there no other factors possibly affecting them?
do you experience this every time there is a cold spell?
perhaps they were getting some extra  nutrients in the form of phytoplankton or zooplankton that would be more plentiful in warmer weather?
my fish also grew slower during the cooler months, but they were feeding far less, so this is not the same as your situation.
any ideas, anybody?

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## Ivor Biggun

> any ideas, anybody?


Give it up and retire. See you at the airport.

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## Driventowin

> Originally Posted by Dalton
> 
> 
> The rather cold weater now, has a big influence on our FCR, the fish has grown less than normal over the past one month, but eating the same amount of feed...
> 
> 
> been racking my brains trying to figure this out. surely the fcr should not drop if they are feeding the same amount of the same feed? they should get more lethargic in the colder weather, and since they cannot control body temperature, so this is not where the energy is going. are there no other factors possibly affecting them?
> do you experience this every time there is a cold spell?
> perhaps they were getting some extra nutrients in the form of phytoplankton or zooplankton that would be more plentiful in warmer weather?
> ...


 
I recommend a test tank, make a crude solar system by making a PVC grid of small pipes and painting them black put them somewhere they can get proper sun light and plumbing them into your return system. 

Put a thermometer in the tank and monitor the temp for a few days and try to get a fix on a steady temp playing with the amount of water pumped to the system through valving and run time, shutting down the solar system at night because that has the opposite effect as during the day, then stock that tank and see what happens??

That will at least give a good starting point and if it increases growth than you could make a real system the same way for the rest of your tanks....

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## Dalton

> I recommend a test tank, make a crude solar system by making a PVC grid of small pipes and painting them black put them somewhere they can get proper sun light and plumbing them into your return system.


We have been thinking about this, and the way the weather behaves, then it's posible that we will do a test, but we need to calculate very careful, if it really is worth it.

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## Dalton

> been racking my brains trying to figure this out. surely the fcr should not drop if they are feeding the same amount of the same feed? they should get more lethargic in the colder weather, and since they cannot control body temperature, so this is not where the energy is going. are there no other factors possibly affecting them? do you experience this every time there is a cold spell? perhaps they were getting some extra nutrients in the form of phytoplankton or zooplankton that would be more plentiful in warmer weather? my fish also grew slower during the cooler months, but they were feeding far less, so this is not the same as your situation. any ideas, anybody?


No plankton in recirculation systems, and even if, the fish would only eat them if I stopped feeding them pellets, and then the growth-rate would drop real quick.
The solutio is as DTW says to heat up the water somehow, solar power would be the choice in Europe, but here they cost a bloddy fortune.

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## Norton

> The solutio is as DTW says to heat up the water somehow, solar power would be the choice in Europe, but here they cost a bloddy fortune.


With your ability to build your own, think several meters of black plastic tubing on the roof of your shed would add a fair amount of heat to the water.

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## tsicar

> Originally Posted by Dalton
> 
> The solutio is as DTW says to heat up the water somehow, solar power would be the choice in Europe, but here they cost a bloddy fortune.
> 
> 
> With your ability to build your own, think several meters of black plastic tubing on the roof of your shed would add a fair amount of heat to the water.


this does work well- i used black irrigation pipe to raise the temp of my swimming pool in south africa. you need a lot of it, tho. i just coiled it on the top of my garage roof and passed a percentage of the pumped water through it. the stuff is available cheap in thailand, but dalton would need a few kilometres of the stuff with the volume he needs to heat. 
so perhaps heating the water would fix the problem, but why the temp. affects his fcr is still a mystery.

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## Driventowin

> Originally Posted by Norton
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  Originally Posted by Dalton
> ...


 
Well I considered this but that type of plastic piping can have chemicals and toxins in it's processing that can leach into the water and harm your fish, especially under heating conditions so you have to be very careful about those types of materials.. 

You don't want to throw a new curve ball into the program by suddenly having sick fish and not being able to pin the cause. So since you have PVC pipe already and no ill effects currently being displayed it would be better to go with the current plan for your test so you have 'known' parameters with which to form your conclusions.. 

Get your final analysis first then do another test with a single tank again and see if there is any detrimental effect with the 'Poly Pipe' as we refer to it..

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## Dalton

> but why the temp. affects his fcr is still a mystery.


Well Tilapia has there best growth when the temp is around 28-30 C, when it gets down to 20 C then they aint very happy, the cooler water has an effect on the water parameters as well, so there are many factores to take in consideration.

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## tsicar

> Originally Posted by tsicar
> 
>  but why the temp. affects his fcr is still a mystery.
> 
> 
> Well Tilapia has there best growth when the temp is around 28-30 C, when it gets down to 20 C then they aint very happy, the cooler water has an effect on the water parameters as well, so there are many factores to take in consideration.


yes, but you said they were still feeding the same amount, and the cooler water should hold more oxygen? does the cooler water perhaps affect the efficacy of your biofilter? i am sure you would have picked up if it had.
i could understand the slower growth, but why the lower fcr?

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## Dalton

> i could understand the slower growth, but why the lower fcr?


The fcr and the growth are linked together, if the growth is slow but the feed-intake is the same, the your fcr goes up. Still it could be many things, it's mainly the smaller fish who gets the worst fcr, the bigger ones is not that bad, and there feed intake is less as well, if you look at &#37; of feed compared to the body-weight.

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## tsicar

> Originally Posted by tsicar
> 
> i could understand the slower growth, but why the lower fcr?
> 
> 
> The fcr and the growth are linked together, if the growth is slow but the feed-intake is the same, the your fcr goes up. Still it could be many things, it's mainly the smaller fish who gets the worst fcr, the bigger ones is not that bad, and there feed intake is less as well, if you look at % of feed compared to the body-weight.


yes, can't believe i missed that. too much cheap wine lately........

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## Dalton

^ Guess you're looking forward to come back here, so you're excused... :Smile:

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## Dalton

Is this one of yours Tsicar ???

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## bar dog

Ok for those of us in the viewing gallery and are interested but missing out on some of the conversation.

FCR = food conversion rate? 

thanks

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## tsicar

> Is this one of yours Tsicar ???


wish it was.... know just how much pituatary gland extract you could get out of that one?!
out here they are catching them in the orange river, weighing in at between 50 and 60 kg. catfish are only supposed to live 8 to 10 years, so they must have grown at least 5kg per year! the weather gets pretty cold in the winter, and they did not get pellets to eat!
it means there is something they are feeding on which has a higher protien content than fishmeal (not likely) or they get a lot older than everybody thought.
cheers

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## tsicar

> Ok for those of us in the viewing gallery and are interested but missing out on some of the conversation.
> 
> FCR = food conversion rate? 
> 
> thanks


correct.
 ratio of weight gain to feed consumed.
if you do not do this calculation you will never know if your operation is viable or not. farming fish sucessfully depends on constant monitoring of all aspects: fcr, water quality, temperature etc, and accurate record-keeping is essential.
a pencil and paper are probably the aquaculturists most important tools
cheers

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## Dalton

> a pencil and paper are probably the aquaculturists most important tools


Don't forget to mention a healthy bank-account if some of the above things go south... :Smile:

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## bar dog

Guys - this is way out of my experience and knowledge but please keep it going, I am learning bits as I read. If this keeps up I will know enough to cover a postage stamp.

BD

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## Dalton

^ Then you know as much as we do.. :Smile:  There's no golden line to follow in fish-farming, many things depends on the location and the local water-parameters, and the higher stocking density you have the more problems will arrive as well. One never stops learning in this bizz, and mostly from mistakes... :Smile:

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## jizzybloke

> We sell only them at the moment, but we are testing Pengassius as well and later we will try wit sea-bass.


Is this what is also known as Basa?

Any updates Dalton?

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## Dalton

^ I believe they are called Barramundi as well, and no updates yet, the fingerling's keeps dying for some reason, we think it's the feed there has to low protein and basically the wrong diet, cause the water-parameters are ok.

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## Rattanaburi

Interesting stuff. Thanks for bringing up FCR, bardog; that was driving me nuts. 

Have you figured out a way to deal with that cold issue Dalton? What is 'Pengassius' called in Thai?

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## Dalton

> Have you figured out a way to deal with that cold issue Dalton?


It's not to much of a problem yet, so I leave it for now.





> What is 'Pengassius' called in Thai?


Pla Sawai  :Smile:

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## Marmite the Dog

Have you tried growing _pla niu_?  :Smile:

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## Dalton

^ Yeah, they are getting real big... :Smile: ...You need some for your fish and chips....

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## Rattanaburi

How about Pla Lak Klue-ay? I thought I heard that they are expensive here in LOS. Those are the 3 inch thin ones they deep fry and serve as a snack with your drinks.

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