excelsiorfarm:
my concept would have being to use this your water source to service ponds that are dug not as deep as your 12 feets.My reasons 1.)you don't over labour your fishes when they come to feed,food that would have aid faster growth will be wasted on physical efforts 2.)Harvest will be a bit difficult,though not impossible 3.) drainage design will be difficult, still not impossible i.e. you can pump out. 4.)don't go & fall into a 12 feet pond,get a life jacket handy.other ?,read thru d thread,visit agricnetwork

olabakefish:

There is no straight way jacket to this in my humble opinion.

I have tried wrapping my head round this for a while and the following are what I deduced.

You need to first understand the major cost elements in relation to the peculiarity of reactions to other cost input given that they are constant.

What I mean is that there are different variables that can be held responsible when output is not as expected.

From the above, quality of seed (fingerlings or Juveniles), quality of water, quality of feed, type pond, management practices (feeding, change of water and diseases control) all play keys roles and are major determinants of output.

Given that you are able to get major variables right, which in most cases can't be 100%. The next thing is budget planning.

A lot of farmers seems to run into serious trouble with budget planning especially on feeding, I am a living example, I had to quickly dispose my stock aim at table size for melange with just 2wks to expected time. Why because I had underfeed them and with the wrong version of feed in a bid to cut costs.

I will talk about feeding first which usually deals farmers with the deadliest blow. By rule of catfish farming to get 1kg fish you have feed the fish 1kg feed some may take less to give save size I have seen fish take just 520grms and grew to 1.2kg.

The experts like Oga soft and Oga Robonski usually recommend at least 800grms to get 1kg given that all other variables are correct.

An accounting minded person will always exercise caution in budget planning by envisaging the highest cost possible and the lowest returns possible.

Let take rearing 1000 fishes to table size from juveniles for example.
Major cost to be considered are:
Cost of seeds (1000 x N 20) - N 20,000
Cost of feed (800grms x 1000 fishes) = 800kg x N240/kg (current price Magnet floating feed) = N 192,000
Cost of pond for the period- (to be determined by you i. e divide cost of building the pond by useful life period)
Cost of labour - (to be determined by you i.e you take care of the fishes yourself or you employ ppl)
Cost of medication- usually minimal if mgt practice is good
Cost changing water - depends heavily on type of pond and system you practice
Other miscellaneous costs.

After arriving that total cost for the production period,
the next thing is to determine your revenue, don't forget I said envisage the highest cost and the lowest revenue this will help to absorb unfavorable unexpected events.

Ask around in your locality what price do they buy your target production size. You will get different prices then pick the lowest price, it doesn't mean you sell at that in the end.

Also important, have it at the back of your mind that you will lose close to 15% of your stock before harvesting if not more. You can even raise it to 20% like oga soft told that if he want 5000 fishes for harvest he stocks 6000. You can do d maths. After that not all fishes will reach 1kg at harvesting time and will go beyond 1kg. That why important practice like sorting and adequate feeding should not be over looked. Oga soft they talk am try and sort your stock he told us that a farmer stock 5k fishes only to see 1k fish at harvest and fish don't dissappear.

Let's take lowest price N 450/kg in my locality AIT area Alagbado in Lagos and you get most likely 750kg at harvest i. e N450 x 750kg = N337,500 as your revenue

Then your profit for the production period will be
Revenue - Total cost
N337,500 - (20,000+192,000+ others to be determined) = N ?

Note the prices are prevailing prices as at March 2016 in my locality as mentioned above so in using this model you need to consider the environmental factors in your vicinity.

I rest my case in my own humble opinion.
My learnered Ogas at the top can help make corrections where necessary we are all here to learn.
Olabake fish 'More Fish Oil to your Elbow.

chilanfarms:
To table size ur feed budget is wrong, why stay on a particular feed frm juvenile to table size? They only need 36% animal protein frm fingerlins to post jumbo frm post jumbo to melange u cut animal protein to 28% and as d climbing goes up u reduce animal protein wic is d most expensive ingredient in feed production.

excelsiorfarm:
@ olabakefish, forum is for rubbing minds, now my question, how did u arrived at fish taking 520grams to reach 1.2kg, how long? was it earthen or other ponds? for d rest written, pardon me for not reading them because it will only increase questions i would love clarity of answers. my bro, pls just enlighten me ,thanks

excelsiorfarm:
@ olabakefish, from the analysis given, less than 5 & i can almost conclude they fed on smaller fishes & i don't think that particular batch as a whole made any good profit with d feed quantity fed to them. let's hear the experience, i intend many to gain from it that's d way i ask questions so it isn't d surface that people see, but indepth of every matter

robonski15:
Hello fellow fish farmers, i will like to introduce our Floating Magnet Gelatin feed. We just finished test running and it came out very good with its 60% CP still intact.. By Monday we will start full production with its branded Bags. I will update with more exclusive pictures as we progress.

want to use this medium to thank our esteemed customers for their patronage and also our Magnet feed distributors Nation wide for their loyalty, advice and support.. Our management remains faithful and devoted to maximize profit in fish farming

Thank you

remros2:
I know this might sound funny, but how does a new farmer like me recognise a runt when I see one? Also how long does it take a fry to grow into fingerling and a fingerling to a juvenile. Precisely I want to know exactly when one can start suspecting if once fishes are runts in d process of growing. Thanks

robonski15:
Hello fellow fish farmers, i will like to introduce our Floating Magnet Gelatin feed. We just finished test running and it came out very good with its 60% CP still intact.. By Monday we will start full production with its branded Bags. I will update with more exclusive pictures as we progress.

I want to use this medium to thank our esteemed customers for their patronage and also our Magnet feed distributors Nation wide for their loyalty, advice and support.. Our management remains faithful and devoted to maximize profit in fish farming

Thank you

wilbro:


Thanks for your reply Boss man. The design of the earthen ponds depth will be 3ft to 4ft but I am just thinking if its possible to dig a big pit where water comes from the ground. Then the water will be channel to the earthen ponds. all waste water will be passed to the river.

I am addicted to this thread from its birth boss man and also I have an existing farm with concrete tanks.
Thanks for the tip.

Just to ask, how many fish per meter square is stocked in earthen ponds to get the best weight gain or result.

aleshsenior2000:


Congratulations. That's very nice.

donsufia:

Congratulation Guys. I am pleased to see this. Farmers in Uyo will be pleased to see this.

excelsiorfarm:
It is possible, there's a picture i posted maybe 2 years back that i mentioned in ogbomoso that was designed by a german, the farm uses that system for some of their ponds. Though i don't encourage your idea of polluting our river. Though we have 1001 experts with varying view point, but it is very important to first understand the water source of your area before saying because mr A did this i should follow that stocking density also.

olabakefish:


@Chilanfarms the budget is neither wrong nor right it is a model subjected various factors, do you know that you can use only either coppens, Ranaan, Aqua Aller vital or top feeds, alone bearing in mind they all have different sizes and protien requirements for different ages of catfish and you can decide to stick to one brand from start to finish. At the end when you check the total quantity of feed to total cost you get an average cost per kg.

Based on my pricing research on average cost per kg of some selected feed brands as at March 2016 in Alagbado area of Lagos
Coppens is N400/kg
Ranaan 335/kg
Vital 300/kg
Well constited local feed 250/kg

Mind you, some of the respected contributors of this page Oga Soft777 and Robonski15 are the architects of the feed I used as reference point which many of us are commending including you if am not mistaken. Made us understand that the Magnet Gelatin feeds with 62% cp of which higher % are animal protein can be applied to the fishes from Juveniles which was the fish age I used.

I used the newly produced floating Gelatin as a reference which is even more expensive than the powder and pelleted ones which are about N200/kg or there about.

Like I said earlier it's model in which you can slot in your peculiar cost elements.

Chilanfarms you are also a respected contributor, it will help baby farmers like us, if you can tell us the the Magnet Gelatin feeds in not fit to be used as a point of reference in account model, I took my intellectual knowledge and time to come up with to help us in this forum.

This accounting aspect of me speaking not the baby fish farmer.

Olabake fish 'More Fish Oil to your Elbow'
I rest my case

mercylicious:


@excelsior, I would like to see the pics again. I think lagbaja or someone else said something similar to that. A well DT pumps itself, so no need to spend on fuel.

Excelsior, where else can d waste go if not the river?
All drainages still convert to the river though.

vickifeanyi47:
Hello house, please how do fishes behave when transferred to a new pond? using gepee tank but transfered to tarpaulin pond which makes them cluster at the edges.. I need your suggestions gurus

excelsiorfarm:
no sin in that, they would spread out with time. Also monitor them,don't overfeed & keep clean water as precaution if they choose to exhibit stress disorder as a result of new environment or rude transfer handling

vickifeanyi47:

Thanks but they raise their heads up hanging vertically.. wht the cause?

excelsiorfarm:
at this stage, u need to take caution, they had been stressed & disease outbreak could occur. don't feed, water height should be checked also, get antibiotic pls, do dripping. they need oxygen too. at times some of the tarpaulin material react with water creating toxic if first introduction of water to it or wasn't washed

vickifeanyi47:

Ok thanks . but as regard the tarpaulin I thoroughly washed with salt solution. I also used poultry dunk for a week, washed thoroughly before adding fresh water Nd introduce them but still don't know what happening.. getting fed up

excelsiorfarm:
don't get fed up, what is d present state & what had happened

belusconi:
Good Day Fishpreneurs,
We are a newly built, developed and equipped Nine Stars Hatchery and Farms located at Shagamu, Ogun State.
With Technologies & Ideas from India, Vietnam, Thailand, China and Nigeria our farm boast a monthly production capacity of about 500,000 or more fingerlings production as of now.
The fries are produced from a selection of hi breed and well taken care 3 to 5 years old Brood stocks. A well balanced diet is followed in taking good care of these parent fishes in which they are fed on high quality proteins for optimal & fertile egg development, B-glucans to support the immunity system, Extra Vitamins C and E to improve the general status and fertility, powerful mix of anti-oxydant and astaxanthin which make sure that the eggs produced are of a very high quality, sustainable and the fries produced would be grown at a greater speed with weight, body & immunity.
Our fingerlings at week 7 to 8 have an ideal size of about 3cm to 5cm weighing about 3 grams to 5 grams, These fingerlings when ready to be moved out of our farm are technically graded and sorted which gives them a uniformity to reach direct to table size level without being sorted or graded again, We have experienced farmers and specialist from India and Nigeria who take care of the well-nourished and nutritional diet of these fingerlings from day 1 of hatching.
We start our opening sales with a promo to encourage more and more local farmers to get into commercial fish farming, our offers as follows:
100 fingerlings with purchase of 1,000 hi breed, very active and fast growing fingerlings.
* 2 bags of 1.8MM/2MM imported fish feed with purchase of 10,000 hi breed, very active and fast growing fingerlings (booking open till stock last)
* 5 bags of 2MM/3MM imported fish feed with purchase of 10,000 hi breed, very active and fast growing juvenile (Only on pre-booking and waiting of max 2 weeks)
Kindly check out & like our page on Facebook - Nine Stars Hatchery and Farms for more details, information and new promo offers.
Contact: Mr. Seun ( 07053823433)

vickifeanyi47:

I added small quantity of poultry manure in a sac bag deep inside the water. the water turns greenish..not seen any mortality so far but they are not running around just like they do in their old pond. Pls can I add you o watsap.. u have really been of help to me.appreciate

excelsiorfarm:
i am not on whatsapp again. Watch the how u feed, if u fed them, also observe that d water does not get greenish to d extreme, though i don't favor use of poultry manure in mobile tanks or ponds.