We also hire out these nets. Goto http://www.fish-breeding.com/lake_netting.html
to see all the details about Seine or lake netting. We buy fish for cash call us today for a quote.
For all your fish harvesting or cropping needs.
June 16, 2010
New bits on trying to use a seine net for lake netting
June 16, 2010
Aquaculture Pond Construction
Aqua culture Pond Construction
Fish always has been an integral part of ancient manmade structures. Simple methods and easily available materials were used to build these structures. Along with some aquatic plants fishes also were cherished as an important source of food for their families. People were aware of fish farming at that time. Methods such as trapping tidal water and digging ponds by hand were used for that. Even today natural water resources are used for fish cultivation. Aquaculture system has made rapid progress due to technical advances in modern times, but the basic essence of the system remained same all along in upcoming nations. For successful aquaculture, proper design and construction is extremely important.
Size of these earthen ponds depends on factors such as scale of production; types of species used for cultivation, availability of water, etc. and depending on these factors size of the pond varies from 20 square meters to 20 hectares and sometimes more than that.
For example, tilapia farming requires 0.1 to 0.2 hectare of pond size during nursery stage and 0.3 to 0.5 hectare during grown-out stage. Shrimp (prawn) farming requires 7 to 20 hectare ponds. There is no fixed shape of these ponds i.e. shape of these ponds varies from rectangular to circular; some ponds are in square shape too. These farms must maintain water level of at least 1 meter. Ponds can be used for many purposes such as breeding of species, conditioning of young ones, nursery and fishing.
Location of pond matters much to the success of fish cultivation. Owners must make sure that location of the pond is appropriate for fish farming.
Ideally owner should take advice and guidance from experts of this field to determine viability of the entire project. Before selecting location for the pond many factors should be taken under consideration such as; local climate, availability of water and quality of soil. Adequate availability of water is not enough, complete chemical testing of that water is also essential because most of the cultured species can survive and grow in very specific conditions. Quality of soil also affects construction of the pond. Pond must contain at least 20% of clay to hold the water. Soil at the bottom of the pond is also important as it plays very important role in soil water interaction. This interaction must be anticipated well in advance depending on quality of soil. Drainage system must be up to the mark for aqua culture pond and slope must be gentle (ideally less than 1% and usually closer to 0.1%, in case of large ponds.) in these ponds. High risk flood zones should be avoided for constructing these plants.
After thorough examination of the location, if it is proved that the site is ideal for the project; then further process and strategic panning is carried out. Experienced aquaculture design engineer and project managers are extremely handy in such operations. There are number of ways to build a pond for aquaculture but priority must be given tried and tested ways. Though farm building looks like an exiting prospect but it takes loads of hard work and skill from the design engineer to build a best possible farm in available resources. This process is not easy as it looks; in fact it is very demanding and complex process. Tools like scrapers and machines like bulldozers are required at each stage of the building; though their use is very expensive for the owner. Equipments are used according to design and requirements o the project. Construction of dikes is the most important stage of building these ponds. During construction of dikes slopes are normally set at 2:1. Along with densification, sufficient clay content is extremely important. Steady and even slope is required for better results. Top of the dike is deliberately made wide in such a way that there is enough space for truck movement. Shared dikes (common dike between two ponds like common compound wall) are used to save money. After completing the construction related to bottom of the pond and dikes, inlet and outlet structures for water are created. Monks use to control flow of water in such ponds thus this kind of construction is always referred to monks. Now a day, monks are constructed by pouring concrete. One can see different styles and methods being used to construct this type of structure. Outlet monks should be directly connected to dikes for easy access irrespective of their location, further steel is used to frame these monks in proper dimensions and shape. Floor is leveled according to proper slope during pouring process. This leveling can be done with the help of boards.
Flow of water is controlled by grooves, which are created at the base of the monk and further connected with boards. With slight modification, same structure can be used to stop the entry of predators and escape of cultivated fish.
The entire monk box is structured around a concrete pipe which is laid at the floor.
Size of this entire structure depends on size of the pond and amount of water flow.
Interesting thing about this structure is same structure can be used for shrimp harvesting.
5,000 cubic meters of water can be stored in this particular type of pond. If constructed strictly according to guidelines just mentioned above, operation like draining or re harvesting can take place with optimum ease and efficiency. According to difference in the elevation of different areas, bottoms of the ponds need to be cut. Some of the ponds may need more cutting while some may need less. Purpose of this entire process is to use natural gravitational pull for draining.
The guidelines just mentioned above, will hopefully help you to build an ideal farm for aqua culture.
May 25, 2010
Koi Fish Breeding
Koi Fish Breeding
A thrilling as well as a tough process to do is to take care of the baby Koi and breed the Koi at the same time. The adult Koi eats up the baby Koi till they do not grow at least to a length of about 8cms or more. Till then you need to take care of it. You need to supplement the diet for your Koi, while they are in the spawning tank. This diet needs to be supplemented with correct nutrition which contributes to the fish’s energy and color. Daphnia, bloodworms are good quality frozen foods that can be fed to the Koi. These supplements are good in the sense that any kind of food missed by koi can be made up by taking these foods.
Breeding time for male and female Koi differs, for male it is when they are 2 years old and for females 3 years old. There are chances of breeding younger koi also but their offspring will not be of good quality.
Goldfish mate at any time and at any age. On the other hand, Koi are choosier about the spawning times. They usually spawn only once or twice in a year and this happen during changing water temperatures. It is quite usual for a koi group to generate at a koi show after getting moved from their home pond into show tanks. There is a possibility that even though you have planned everything carefully, female and male and Koi will just swim around without doing anything for days. Koi gets friendly with the baby Koi after the passing of the risk stage, i.e. once the baby Koi has grown 3inch in length.
It Is by June end/ July beginning that fish comes into spawning condition and this depends on the temperature of the water. When water gets heated up, during morning and evening time, mating activity takes place then. Breeding of Koi lasts till about 30 minutes and to notice this you can look for froth on the surface of the water.
There is a possibility that spawning gets missed as well. So you need to look for translucent eggs to ensure that they do not get eaten up. Goldfish mates earlier than koi.
It’s difficult to mate Koi especially when they are not in breeding state when they are young is. When the female Koi will start to breed, the mid riff area will begin to swell on one sided. This swelling is the development of eggs in the ovaries. When the male koi matures and come into breeding state, they build up small white spots known as tubercles on their pectoral fins. These tubercles get visible around March, depending on how warm the water
The males have something known as the opercula and head which gets quite rough, just like sandpaper. Males cruise around the edges of the pond, at the surface in groups.
It is usually immediately after a secluded warm spell that Koi and Gold fish will usually spawn. When the time to spawn becomes prominent, males start to chase the females around the pond. As spawning gets more this activity increases.
Both Koi and Goldfish in your pond will mate but the offspring are not of good quality.
Spawning Tank
Spawning tank is needed when you decide to Breed Koi Carp. The dimensions for a spawning tank:
- 2.4 x 1.8m (8×6ft) surface area
- depth of not less than 30cm
- Spawning medium for the eggs to fall into and this medium could be bristle brushes, spawning mops or hardy aquatic plants. This medium is a good option for the eggs to stick on to something
- Spanish moss can be a choice too
Ensure that the medium covers nearly two-thirds of the tank. The male fish chases the female fish and strike her back end to support her to shed her eggs breeding of koi to happen. Milt, which is the male sperm, is then released. This contains millions of sperms but only a single sperm can go in one egg. All this takes place in the early morning hours.
The spawning tank can also act as the rearing tank during the first weeks of baby Koi’s life.
You should not disturb the Koi breeding previous to and through spawning process. You need to keep an eye on them because there is a possibility of females getting bullied by the males and in such cases the females should be placed in the pond. After the spawning process gets completed, the male koi’s excitement gets reduced; the female koi hangs head down and heavily respires heavily. Then the spawning ropes should be removed gently and placed for incubation in vat.
Baby Koi
The parents do not look after the baby koi, Infact they can eat them away and hence to protect the baby Koi the adult koi should be removed. Koi eggs hatch generally by a maximum of 7 days. This depends on the temperature; the hatching is quicker if the temperature is warmer. It’s recommended that the temperature should be between 68-77 degrees F. It’s not necessary that the eggs hatch all together, some may be unsuccessful to hatch. Post the eggs get hatched, the baby Koi survives by absorbing their yolk sac.
During the next 3-4 weeks powdered or liquid fry food can be fed to the baby koi. The rearing tank should be clean and well oxygenated. You can feed the baby Koi after one month from hatching. Many breeders prefer egg yolk is for feeding. The food that is fed to the baby koi should be small in quantity, high in protein content and feeding should be done many times a day. Baby Koi detects the food at sight when at the swim up stage. Hence the food should be all around them.
For the first day you must give hard-boiled egg yolk although the dietary value is little, yet it will increase the stomach size.
Another food which is good to feed the newly hatched baby Koi is brine shrimp larvae. These can be fed when the Koi are about a week old. The baby koi gets ready for mashed food after a week or so. Now the food can be fed of a size which can be taken by the smallest fish in the container.
At the time of first stage of feeding, accumulated remains and waste should be removed regularly. The ideal instrument for removing all this is a siphon made from airing tubing is and to clean the outlet screen an old toothbrush is useful to.
Fresh water should be added frequently to the vat for removing ammonia and nitrates.
Tap water should be aerated before adding to the vat for chlorine to evaporate.
After few weeks the baby Koi grows to about 5-l0mm in length and begins to intake larger food quantities.
May 20, 2010
carp for sale.
we will have 20000 carp for sale at the end of the year. Have a look at our website for details on the carp for sale. We will also have a load of tench for sale as well at coarse fish call us today.
April 26, 2010
Lake and water Aeration
How Lake and Water Aeration Can Reduce Pond Weeds
The increasing problem of pond weeds:
Number of houses has sprung up in the recent times, in order to accommodate the ever growing population, in and around the UK and the other countries. This has resulted in the increase of sediments and the nutrients that ultimately wash into the watersheds. Inappropriate waste disposal, fertilizers, and soil run off enter into the lakes, streams and ponds resulting in number of problems like rooted pond weeds, algae blooms, low levels of lake oxygenation, bacteria, increased water temperature, fish kills and nasty odors.
There is an inbuilt eco system in the lake which keeps it clean and healthy through the food chain where the organisms absorb the nutrients. The aerobic bacteria present in the lower order of the chain eat the nutrients. The natural system in the pond gets disturbed when excessive nutrients and the run off devastate the eco system in the pond and its absorbing ability. When this happens, the pond weeds and algae take over. The dead pond weeds and algae sink to the bottom of the pond and get rotten thereby resulting in additional nutrients in the water, using up the oxygen at the bottom and increasing the bottom sediment. But as soon as the water temperature and the sunlight get right, the pond weeds grow and new algae blooms.
Inappropriate approach to the problem:
In order to get rid of the pond weeds quickly, the pond owners add herbicides and chemicals. Adversely this aggravates the problem with additional muck arising from the dead vegetation, at the bottom of the pond. The oxygen level further gets depleted due to the decaying plant materials. There results a residual build up of fish and sediments because of excessive chemical usage.
Correct approach to the problem:
The appropriate solution to this problem will be water aeration which is the increase in the levels of dissolved oxygen that will enable the nutrients to decompose aerobically. The organisms and bacteria in the pond require dissolved oxygen for decomposing the organic sediments and die if the level of dissolved oxygen decreases.
There is another kind of bacteria called the anaerobic bacteria which sustains in the environment of no or low dissolved oxygen wherein they digest slowly the organic sediments and release toxic gas in the water which kills the insects and the helpful aerobic bacteria.
However, the anaerobic digestion of the pond sediments is a much slower process as compared to the aerobic digestion process. This is 30-40 times slower resulting in the accumulation of the organic sediment levels.
Stopping the new nutrients from entering the pond is the ideal way to save the pond from the algae and pond weeds and increasing the number of pond fish.
Another way of improving the pond is by increasing the dissolved oxygen level that helps the aerobic bacteria in decomposing the organic matters in the pond thereby improving the water quality. This is called Pond Aeration.
Pond Aeration – The Best Solution
Pond aeration is a process which will increase the oxidation process and eliminates pollution. The pond or lake aerator systems can work at their best with the use of special equipments called diffusers. Organic sediments can be prevented or reduced by maintaining the aerobic environment properly. Aerobic environment at the bottom level of the pond provides various benefits to the aquatic environment, reduces pond weeds and algae and prevents the build up of the sediments.
Lake and Water Aeration are the most important things when using a lake. Fish farming and fish breeding using alot of aerators to aerate water, Lake owners should follow our example.
April 19, 2010
Nursery Stage For Crucian Carp
Continued from my article post
Nursery stage:
At the nursery stage, the monoculture method is adopted. Depending upon the length of the rearing period and the size, the usual stocking density of 1.5-2.5 million/ha is varied. Depending upon the water fertility, organic fertilization is used which normally ranges from 1500-3000 kg/ha for green and animal manure. This is done every 4-5 days. Alternatively soybean milk is also used as both fertilizer and feed. It ranges from 3-5 kgs (dry soybean)/100000 fishes daily. It is easy to use soybean even though its use increases the production cost.
After the 5th day of stocking, the paste form of soybean cake and the by products of grain processing will be required daily, in the quantity of 1.5-2.5 kg/100000 fish. Good fishery nt can lead to the survival rates in the nursery ponds up to 90% as compared to the normal rate of 70-80%.
Within a period of 2-3 weeks, the fish reaches the size of 30mm. These fishes are called in China as summer fingerlings. Now they are ready for fingerling rearing. It is very much required to condition the fingerlings through netting and holding them at a high density before they can be transferred to the fingerling ponds. This process increases their tolerance to transport stress.
Fingerling rearing:
Summer fingerlings have to be reared to a suitable size of 6-7cm in order to stock them in grow out ponds. The rearing can be done in two ways.
- The summer fingerlings are stocked at 90000-120000/ha at the fingerling ponds to make them reach the marketable size in the first year of production. As the fish grows 6cm in one month, they are transferred to grow out ponds to be marketable within one year.
- There is also another common practice to stock the Crucian Carp at 150000-300000/ha and rear them in the fingerling ponds till the end of the year so that they reach the size of 10cm or even more. The survival rate is normally 80-90 percent. Initially, the natural foods enhanced by the fertilizer and soybean milk form the feed. After that the commercial feeds like wheat bran, rapeseed cake, soybean cake in paste form etc are required for the optimal growth so that these fingerlings can be used as stock in the grow out ponds in the subsequent year. This process results in two year cycle for the fish to become of larger market size and value.
Further on growing techniques:
Poly culture in rice paddies and pens/ponds are the commonly used on growing technique.
- Semi intensive to intensive method of poly culture in ponds:
The Crucian carp is stocked along with the other varieties of carp either as a major species or a secondary one. The stocking rate of the Crucian carp when it forms the major species ranges from 22500-30000/ha of 25-50g of fish. For the secondary species, the bighead and silver carp are stocked. At the end of one year, the fish usually attain 150-400g and the production reaches 4000-6000kg/ha. The production of the secondary species also reaches 3000-4500kg/ha thereby giving the total productivity of 6000-10000kg/ha.
When the Crucian carp is chosen as the major species, the fishes being omnivores, they are fed with commercial feeds and pelletted feeds. The feed ingredients in the pelletted feeds contain the by products from the grain processing and oil extraction as the major source of protein. The addition of animal protein in the feed is limited thus making the feed cheap. FCR is ~ 2:1 ratio. By enhancing the natural food availability through fertilization, the required quantity of feed can be reduced.
When the Crucian carp is stocked as secondary species then the density is usually 1500-1800fish/ha for 7-10cm fish. The fish reaches the size of 300g thereby giving a production of 450-900kg/ha. This normally accounts to 5-10 percentage of the total production. No special feeding is required and the fishes can also be cultured in pens in the shallow lakes. The stocking and the production levels are similar to the pond culture.
- Extensive culture in the rice paddies:
Crucian carp can also be used for culture in rice paddies. The stocking rate is 750-1500/ha. Production can reach the level of 300-450kg/ha. The natural food forms the feed for the fish. Culturing these fishes in rice paddies is also beneficial to rice as a means of tilling the soil and pest control.
Techniques for harvesting:
Harvesting of Crucian carp is possible only if the pond is drained. This is because they are bottom-dwelling fishes. Harvesting is usually done at the end of the culture period, initially by netting them at a decreased water depth level and totally after draining the pond. Farmers also practice selective harvesting for balanced marketing in which case they use casting nets as a normal method.
Handling and further processing:
The farmed Crucian carp is sold fresh or live. The traditional island fishers, catching the fishes from natural water bodies, dry and salt them.
Cost of production:
This is normally below £0.35kg subjest to various outside forces
April 14, 2010
Pictures of the working fish farm
Brood fish breeding tank
fish breeding troughs
The Fish Farm Hatchery System
carp fry
These are pictures of the working fish farm. and the fish farm design software that we use to design fish farms or aquaculture facilities for people all over the world.
Fish Farm Design Software
The above is the software we use for designing fish farms.
fish farming bits
April 12, 2010
Moved the Carp
We have had to seperate the carp dues to the number of carp. We have had to put 20000 in each hatchery trough. These fish will be ready for the end of november, with some of the best carp for sale in the country.
April 8, 2010
Pictures of Carp Fry
The below picture was taken when the carp were only 1 week old. They are very hard to see and look like pins. It is amazing to think that these carp will be sold in 6 months time at 6-8″. If you are looking for carp for sale please look at the fish breeding website for more info or call jon on 07889829021 Sunset Koi Farm/fish farm
April 5, 2010
New Carp Pictures
I will be posting ome carp pictures in a couple of days the carp are now 1 week old and will be for sale in in November.
The carp will be for sale in November 2010 sale Prices will start from only £0.20p each.