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Thread: An Isaan Pond

  1. #101
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    That's good it's healed up OK. Must have been painful.

    Ya need to get some safety flip flops.

    Many years ago at work offshore a friend of mine was doing some odds and ends when he slipped (on a discarded cable tie, would you believe) and badly twisted his ankle. He was wearing flip flops on the back deck of a boat so was in the shit. We had to take his flip flops and stick safety boots on his feet before telling the management. No PPE and no insurance, plus would have maybe lost his job. Wouldn't happen these days of course, not allowed flip flops even inside the accommodation of the boats now.

    Anyway... it didn't take long at all until we started to catch some proper fish in the pond. Here's a pla nin and a pla tabtim. These fish were about half a kilo each, or a pound each in real money.



    The tilapia you get in the market are usually around a kilo each. Even now ours don't get that big, but not far off. We throw in fish pellets every day but I'm constantly amazed at how well the fish do in our pond. The water is dark green and full of algae, it's oxygen deficient (the fish are on the surface every morning gulping air) and it's over crowded. The pla nin breed relentlessly and the pond is full of fry... well, at least it was. I managed to solve that problem.

    But at least we know the provenance of our fish - no chemicals, drugs or antibiotics and I guess they are practically organic. Maybe there is some nasty stuff in the pellets, I'd be interested if anyone knows about that?

    The wife had stocked some strange fish. This one looked like a roach or rudd (from my experience in the UK).



    And no idea what this one was. Pla jackaree (???) or something like that from memory, but it tasted awful and went to the inlaws.



    My daughter landed this catfish for me one day. The missus wasn't around so I put it back.



    It was really nicely patterned and didn't look like your average pla duuk. I have a feeling it may have been transferred to the pond after outgrowing our fish tank in the house. Regardless, it was a pretty fish and probably a few years old, so it was nice to let it go. I'm getting soft like that.


  2. #102
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    dapping with a black gnat would be great fun,yes mate BARBLESS HOOKS.that would be great fun.not like those monsters behind the mall,had many a tussle with them.

  3. #103
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mendip View Post
    didn't look like your average pla duuk
    Pla kot...

  4. #104
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mendip View Post
    The wife had stocked some strange fish. This one looked like a roach or rudd (from my experience in the UK).


    It looks like one of these: plaa dta-peeyan - ปลาตะเพียน.


    https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/ปลาตะเพียนขาว

  5. #105
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    Java Barb/Silver Barb in English.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_barb
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_barb

    The Java barb (Barbonymus gonionotus; Thai: ตะเพียน Ta-phian), more commonly known as silver barb in aquaculture, is a species of ray-finned fish in the genus Barbonymus.

  6. #106
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    ^ Thanks Nev.

    I guess these fish would come under the 'coarse' fish category in the UK and wouldn't normally be eaten, apart from an occasional pike maybe.

    If the wife's not around I only keep the tilapia for eating and put the rest back. We also have these pale grey fish with a flat head and nasty spikes on their pectoral fins. The wife say's they are too small to eat at the moment (half a pound maybe) but she has her eye on them.

    A couple of years ago I was fishing for the pla nin when the float shot under, I struck and it was obvious there was something big on the line. After a long fight I landed a huge catfish. The wife unfortunately witnessed this and insisted on keeping it. She went off with the gardener to some friends and they made a pla duuk curry... yum yum.

    The pla duuk was 5.5kg





    I've since lost bigger fish which have come off the hook, or wrapped the line around one of the pond plants. But to be honest, when you lose a fish in your own pond, you haven't really lost it!

    Recently, early one morning after heavy rain there was a shoal of big catfish wallowing around at the edge of the pond. Spawning maybe?

    I must be getting very soft as I'd rather watch them in the pond than knock 'em on the head. These are probably four or five years old.


  7. #107
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    Originally Posted by Mendip
    didn't look like your average pla duuk
    Pla kot...
    These 2 once I was given by a local fisher who did not want them (he called them pla kot). So I had added them to my pool with koi fish - despite numerous warnings - they will fight.
    An Isaan Pond-15052109-jpg

    They had stayed there over 4 years, rarely seen, never attended the fight for food when given.
    An Isaan Pond-18111864a-jpg

    Only sometimes quietly coming to the surface, moving slowly forward, directing the water into their mouth by their 2 long tentacles.
    An Isaan Pond-15052120-jpg

    Found them dead after 4 years few months apart.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails An Isaan Pond-15052109-jpg   An Isaan Pond-18111864a-jpg   An Isaan Pond-15052120-jpg  

  8. #108
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    ^ Thanks Klondyke, that certainly looks like the first big 'catfish' we caught. I think it must have come from our indoor fish tank when it got too big. Can't remember now. Anyway, it went back so is hopefully still swimming around in the pond.

    Anyway, the pla nin bred relentlessly in the pond and in the early days this was causing us problems.

    After we drained the pond so I could spread rough concrete around the edges, there were loads of little depressions in the muddy area (see the foreground of the second photo in post #95). These were plan nin nests. Not only did they nest here, but also in the plant pots housing all the water plants. The buggers kept burrowing out all the soil and the plants kept keeling over. (other fish were eating the plant roots as well, so all we have these days is bull rushes from ditches at the sides of roads, which seem pretty resistant).

    I kept dragging out the plant pots to refill with earth. I tried filling them with the stiff clay you can get from garden centres as well, and even topping that with gravel, but to no avail. They kept digging it out.





    Until I got serious...



    The chicken wire solved that problem.
    Last edited by Mendip; 20-10-2019 at 09:29 PM.

  9. #109
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    The other problem with the pla nin constantly breeding was that the pond was becoming overcrowded and the fish were never going to get big. There were fry all around the margins and even with the kingfishers and a couple of herons that turned up every morning there were just too many small fish.

    To wind back a bit, I've always been amazed at how hardy the Thai freshwater fish are. When we built the house we first filled the land, and now during the wet season (not this year, but in a proper wet season...), the surrounding land floods and we usually have standing water outside our land for a couple of months. For example...



    I can understand the frogs and toads turning up and spawning, but within a few weeks this standing water is full of fish! This has always amazed me. Most of the year this land is bone dry and as hard as concrete. Where on earth do the fish come from? I've never had a satisfactory answer and would love to know where... By the end of the wet season the water is teeming with fish a few inches long and I can only imagine that the eggs somehow survive in the baked hard mud until the following year. Amazing really.

    Anyway, at the end of the wet season, as the water dries up, birds seem to nail most of the fish, but we always get a few escapees crawling across our lawn. I guess they have a few hours to find another pond before the heat kills them. Here were a few I 'saved' from our pond a few years ago - found them just crawling across the grass!



    One was past saving (chicken food) but the other two I took to a big pond up the road. The point to this rambling is that our gardener told me not to put these fish in our pond as they're carnivores and would eat all our others. Anyway, once we had the problem with fish fry I thought why not put a few of these in our pond to control the population. These fish are apparently called pla chon, and I would think are the equivalent in the food chain of a pike in the UK. So, down to the market I went and picked up four nice pla chon.

    Not a good picture, but here's one of the four pla chon about to be released to the pond and an unlimited food supply. Lucky fish, most of his mates were getting knocked on the head in the market!



    That was about three years ago and was a bit of a risk, but it seems to have worked. We now have far fewer fry and can occasionally see the pla chon (or their offspring) chasing fry around the margins.

    A rare success story!

  10. #110
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    Since solving the fry problem and reducing the pond's population it's noticeable at feeding time how much larger the fish are getting.

    It's hard to catch in a photo, but throw a handful of pellets in and the water boils with feeding fish. I buy two sacks of pellets a month (I think around 400 Baht a sack) and we throw in an empty Wall's ice cream tub's worth twice a day - I think the tubs are a litre, maybe 1.5 litres. Feeding the fish is my daughter's job to earn her pocket money. Of course she rarely does it, but still gets her money.

    The fish go mad for a few seconds, then all quiet again. I'm still constantly surprised at how easy this fish raising thing is proving to be. A lot of pla tabtim in this pic here...



    I've read about 'green water' fish farming, which I guess is what we do in a mini way. Not overly productive, and I'm sure we have very slow growing fish compared to commercial operations, but this has always just been a hobby. Many years ago I remember reading on Teakdoor about green water fish farming, was it a guy called Dalton? Way before I became a member but I seem to remember some useful info.

    The reason I do this is partly to keep occupied, which for me ain't easy in Isaan, but mainly to encourage my daughter's interest in animals and give her some kind of an outdoors upbringing. I think it's also good to get food with known provenance, but that wasn't the reason I started doing it. I do however love that my little nipper already appreciates where her food comes from and what it involves.

    Anyway, these days I spend an hour fishing in the pond if we fancy fish for tea!

    A few typical catches...



    The daughter sitting in my 'What are you drinking today' post location... Max with an eye on stealing a fish!



    Another nice catch from the 'jetty'... Max about to get a bollocking...



    And a close-up of that mixed bag. A mixture of pla nin and pla tabtim, and what seems to be a cross (third down on the left). Can they interbreed? I don't know if pla nin and pla tabtim are actually a different species or can they cross breed? Does anyone know?



    I tend to catch around 8 to 10 at a time. Bigger ones get filleted for fish and chips (pla tabtim are the best for this), or my own recipe for poached fish and bantam eggs, or maybe a fish pie. Any leftovers from the fillets, heads and everything, go into a tom yam fish soup. The wife also fries up whole fish with with sweet chilli sauce. Delicious! Our fish aren't as meaty as the farmed ones at the market, but much better I think.

    I'm not going to post up pics of my various fish dishes here to avoid the usual open mockery!

  11. #111
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    pla chon (ปลาช่อน) = snakehead fish. A tasty fish that are usually sold/served grilled. They are commonly sold in markets. The flesh is a yellowy colour. It's a bit boney so not the kind of fish for people who hate bones in their fish.

  12. #112
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mendip View Post
    And a close-up of that mixed bag. A mixture of pla nin and pla tabtim, and what seems to be a cross (third down on the left). Can they interbreed? I don't know if pla nin and pla tabtim are actually a different species or can they cross breed? Does anyone know?


    Pla taptim and pla nin are related fish (both talapia). I believe that pla tabtim is a fairly new variety that came about from interbreeding or some such technique using pla nin.

  13. #113
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    ^ Some info from a Thai website (in Thai) and Google translated into English. Not a perfect translation but it gives you the general idea.

    Source: https://pasusat.com/ปลาทับทิม/

    History of Tabtim fish
    Tilapia (Nile tiapia) has the scientific name Oreochromis niloticus-mossambicus. It is a fish that developed from the species Tilapia First imported into Thailand in the year 1965 by Emperor Akihito The crown prince of Japan Which has delivered 50 tilapia fish, an average length of about 9 centimeters per body, weight of about 14 grams per body for His Majesty Presented to King Rama IX on March 25, 1965.

    His Majesty the King gave a new name "Tilapia Chitralada" and is the beginning of the short name that Nile tilapia and the year 1989, companies in the Charoen Pokphand Group developed a new species in the project to improve the Nile species, Chitralada, by selecting tilapia species from 4 species worldwide

    1. Nile tilapia from America, the distinctive feature is the beautiful color, beautiful texture
    2. Tilapia species from Israel. The distinctive feature is the small head, thick ridge.
    3. Tilapia species from Taiwan, the distinctive feature is the fast growing
    4. Nile tilapia from Chitralada of Thailand, the outstanding characteristic is the strong endurance

    After that, all 4 species of tilapia were mixed across. In order to obtain distinctive characteristics of each species and have high economic value Until getting a new species In which His Majesty the King granted a new name "Tubtim Fish" on 22 January 1998.



    ประวัติปลาทับทิม
    ปลาทับทิม (Nile tiapia) มีชื่อวิทยาศาสตร์ว่า Oreochromis niloticus-mossambicus เป็นปลาที่พัฒนามาจากสายพันธุ์ปลานิล นำเข้ามาในประเทศไทยครั้งแรก เมื่อปี พ.ศ. 2508 โดยสมเด็จพระจักรพรรดิอากิฮิโต มกุฎราชกุมารแห่งประเทศญี่ปุ่น ซึ่งได้ทรงจัดส่งปลานิล จำนวน 50 ตัว ความยาวเฉลี่ย ตัวละประมาณ 9 เซนติเมตร น้ำหนักต่อตัวประมาณ 14 กรัม เพื่อทูลเกล้าฯ ถวายแด่พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว รัชกาลที่ 9 เมื่อวันที่ 25 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2508

    พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว ทรงพระราชทานชื่อใหม่ว่า “ปลานิลจิตรลดา” และเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นของการเรียกชื่อสั้นๆว่า ปลานิล และปีพ.ศ. 2532 บริษัทในเครือเจริญโภคภัณฑ์ ได้พัฒนาสายพันธุ์ใหม่ในโครงการปรับปรุงสายพันธุ์ปลา นิลจิตรลดา โดยคัดเลือกสายพันธุ์ปลานิลจากสายพันธุ์ทั่วโลก 4 สายพันธุ์ ได้แก่

    1. ปลานิลสายพันธุ์จากอเมริกา ลักษณะเด่น คือ มีสีสวย เนื้อสวย
    2. ปลานิลสายพันธุ์จากอิสราเอล ลักษณะเด่น คือ มีหัวเล็ก สันหนา
    3. ปลานิลสายพันธุ์จากไต้หวัน ลักษณะเด่น คือ โตเร็ว
    4. ปลานิลสายพันธุ์จากจิตรลดา ของประเทศไทย ลักษณะที่โดดเด่น คือ มีความอดทน แข็งแรง


    จากนั้น นำปลานิลทั้ง 4 สายพันธุ์มาผสมข้ามสายพันธุ์กัน เพื่อให้ได้ลักษณะเด่นของแต่ละสายพันธุ์และมีคุณค่าท างเศรษฐกิจสูง จนได้สายพันธุ์ใหม่ โดยพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวได้ทรงพระราชทานชื่อให ้ใหม่ว่า “ปลาทับทิม” เมื่อวันที่ 22 มกราคม พ.ศ. 2541

  14. #114
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    ^ It does seem amazing that the tilapia (pla nin) was so recently introduced to Thailand. It now dominates practically every single pond and waterway across the country.

    I wonder what the consequences have been, coping with such an invasive species? There must have been some native losers.

  15. #115
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    The land around the pond area has provided some extra space for fruit trees, so not only do we get pretty much unlimited tilapia (within reason), but also last year we had a glut of mangoes....



    But what do you do with 700 mangoes? The window is short and they don't last long. These were small and sweet. I was eating five mangoes a day, and after they over-ripened it was mango smoothies. After that the chicken's had a bonanza!



    The chickens also enjoyed their extra space. As they say, a happy chicken lays lots of eggs!



    We get anywhere between 10 and 20 eggs a day. We're pretty much self sufficient in fish, eggs, and seasonal fruit.

    Any good recipes for that?

  16. #116
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    The new snake house had plenty of traffic.

    The space under the waterfall is hard to get in to but you have to get in there to turn the pump on. To get the waterfall pump working it needs priming since the water intake is so far below the pump. I hate doing this, but not because of the snakes that go in there but because there's a dirty great spider that lives near the power switches. Snakes are no problem for me, but spiders I just can't handle.

    A couple of big chequered keelbacks took up home behind the pump...



    These snakes are pretty fast, but no problem for an intrepid snake catcher like meself. One got away, but not this one!



    And straight in to the new snake house!





    And off this one went to Korat zoo... I have to admit... the nipper don't look too sure about this!



    I used to take loads of snakes to Korat zoo but am becoming increasingly aware that the 'Khun Mendip Chequered Keelback Exhibit' has never happened. My suspicion is that the keelbacks I've supplied have been fed to the zoo's cobras (their main diet is other snakes). Of course I'm assured otherwise, but even so...

    The original rose-tinted spectacles I wore many years ago have long been replaced by a pair of world weary, cynical glasses that I can now barely see through. I used to take our young cockerels to the local temple to join the flock, to have a free life, as our resident cock would fight them once they reached maturity. Every time I went to visit the temple to see how they were doing, the Monks told me they were sleeping, to come back another time...

    Yeah... amazingly I really believed that back then. My fault of course... should have just eaten them meself, but I'm way too soft these days.
    Last edited by Mendip; 22-10-2019 at 03:58 AM.

  17. #117
    On a walkabout Loy Toy's Avatar
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    Your daughter has a great nature based upbringing mate.

    I bet she becomes a vet.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Loy Toy View Post
    Your daughter has a great nature based upbringing mate.

    I bet she becomes a vet.
    yes LT she will be a vet who actually care's about the welfare of sick animals before the funny money.

  19. #119
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    Quote Originally Posted by Loy Toy View Post
    Your daughter has a great nature based upbringing mate.

    I bet she becomes a vet.
    That would make me very happy - I reckon HH would be her first customer.

    I wanted to be a vet, but never made the grade. You need better grades to be a vet than to be a doctor in the UK.

    At the moment my daughter's ambition is to be a youtuber...

  20. #120
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    Jeez dude.
    Rather you than me.
    Shit scared of any snakes.

  21. #121
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    If you need any new additions for your snake house your welcome at my place anytime! There's always a few about seen two in the last couple of days going after birds eggs I think - we get a lot of nesting birds - which does have a downside

  22. #122
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    ^ Thanks, but I think we have enough!

    I tend not to capture them anymore, apart from the pit vipers that need to be relocated. They stay in the snake house for a few days as 'temporary pets' before going off to the zoo.

    We have a resident tree snake in the chicken run, but he takes care of the mice and leaves the birds alone. You can get up close when it's otherwise occupied!

    Maybe Looper would like to borrow it?



    I posted the full sequence from capture to swallow a while ago on another thread but I can't for the life of me find it now.

  23. #123
    On a walkabout Loy Toy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mendip View Post
    That would make me very happy - I reckon HH would be her first customer.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mendip View Post
    I wanted to be a vet, but never made the grade. You need better grades to be a vet than to be a doctor in the UK.
    My daughter's second choice is to become a doctor mainly because she thought her grades were not good enough to become a vet.

    We just received her latest school report and she received maximum marks so maybe there is still a chance she can follow her first love.

    I would love to have a vet in the family.

  24. #124
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    I found that we were rarely using the pond area as it meant passing through the car port and two gates. That was great while the daughter was young, but now that she's all grown up, swims like a fish and pretty sensible to boot, I decided to open it up. It's much easier to knock things down than to build them!



    Didn't take long.





    Add a gate and all done. Whenever I visit the UK I tend to come back with self locking catches and stuff for these projects. I've found that kind of thing really hard to find in Thailand.



    And connect in a pathway.

    Last edited by Mendip; 24-10-2019 at 10:47 AM.

  25. #125
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    I couldn't leave it like that... one good thing about the oil downturn a few years ago was that I spent a lot of time at home. Lots of pointless projects kept me occupied.

    The white-painted low wall at the left was a corner of my daughter's sandpit. It's now a frog enclosure so the wife can have her favourite stir fry at will. I keep well clear of that - I like frogs, but not to eat. Feel sorry for them to be honest and sneakily release a few into the pond now and again.



    More pathway...



    And somewhere else to sit....



    ... for me and the dogs!



    We can now get from the house to the pond in the wet season without getting muddy feet or slipping over in the wrong flip flops!

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