MONDAY 24/6/13 THE FISH FARM BUSINESS: A successful businessman must first be bold and then learn to appreciate. Wealth has nothing to do with the size of the head. All of us want to be wealthy, yet we do not want to pass through any form of challenge. A PERSON WITHOUT A CHALLENGE IS A CHALLENGE TO HIS PEOPLE. There is no one without a form of challenge. You stop having challenges only when you are dead. There are basically 3 people you should never forget in life. (a) That person that created that troubled life for you. The person that caused you your challenge and your troubles. (b) That person who left you in times of trouble. That person who could not bear your challenges with you. (c) That person that help you out of that trouble. That person who was able to manage that period of challenge with you to see to it that it ended. You know, every morning we wake up, we pray that day makes us all the monies we require to bridge all of our bills. We do not want to remain that person that goes to work simply because a responsible person must go to work. Most of us have given up. We live a life of pretence. We pretend all is well when we know that the work we are doing fetches nothing. We just go so people won’t call us lazy! How faithful are we to our being. Fidelity is not a feeling, it is a decision. You make that decision to be faithful to yourself and the people who rest and depend on you. HOW OFTEN DO YOU SHOW GRATITUDE? We like to refresh us with words of wisdom and motivation before we take us through the topic for the week. It is not all work and no play. We do not take life too seriously, at the same time we do not take it too lightly. We have said it repeatedly that it is not always easy to make it all by ourselves. It is our good character and luck that mingles us with the right people and the right clique. A lot of us do not know how well to appreciate those who have done us good. By so doing, we miss out on better chances. That statement “I THANK YOU” goes a long way in encouraging and motivating our helper to want to do more. Some people feel that because we had expected a person to fund us to the tune of like N1million and this person gives a N100,000.00 he is not worthy of our thanks. How bad will this person have felt? It is good to show gratitude always. If a person has given you something, even if it an advise to add to your value or your living standards or even prayers to uplift your spiritual self, learn to say thank you and after a while when that person is not even thinking it, send a text or make a call to say I THANK YOU again. The lord we worship too see us an ingrate when we talk to him in prayers only when we need something. You know, when we wake up in the morning, we don’t say Lord I thank you, we feel it is our right, and we do not see it as a privilege to wake up every morning? It only takes the grace of God to wake up every morning. It takes the grace of God to enjoy whatever meal. We say God, for how long do we continue to eat this boring food? We think less of those people who have this food in abundance but can not eat. We say what sorts of shoes this is forgetting those people who have no legs at all to wear these shoes? There are some of us who feel we do not need to be thankful once a favour has come from a relative or a friend. Yes we may feel it is our right, if they do not do it, who else will do it forgetting the fact that this relative or friend has his bills to pay too. For him to have prioritized your issue as more important than some of his own commitment, he is worth thanking. See some men do not say thank you for the food the wife has prepared, after all I dropped the money for the food. Some women say, what has he bought that someone else has not bought? After all I am his wife, to do this for me is no big deal. You see some of us at the age of 30years, 35years still living with our parents, still eating from their pots claiming after all, they are my parents and can understand I am yet to get a Job. When will these parents reap the fruit of their labour? When they are close to their grave? How ungrateful can humans be? Please, let us learn to say thank you to our God and to man as we see favour everyday, the air we breathe is a favour from God, it is not our right. He gave us the right, once he decides to bar us from this right, we stop to breathe, that is we are dead. I am sure no one wishes himself dead. If the lord has given this life, we just have to be thankful. THE FISH FARM BUSINESS: As we all are aware, production of consumable in food is the sure and easiest way of making good money consistently. Our major problem in this part of the world is food. Some of us will say it is electricity but the sincere truth is food. The government is making restless efforts to ensure we have this in abundance. Food is scarce as most of us will not and will never dream agriculture a job or part of our jobs. In her attempt to encourage more people into foods production, the United Nations and some other major Non governmental organizations in the world and even government bodies have continued to endlessly inject more and more funds into this sector. The Nigerian population today is 177million people and we are still counting, a few years back the population was 160million. If a quarter of this number eat our own fish a day. I wonder how much fish we have to harvest on a daily basis to satisfy this demand. That is if we assume another quarter is still being imported while the remaining half the population have chosen to eat meat and other foods. A good fish farmer is expected to make his harvest once in every 4 months at least, we require about 44million fish per day. How do we meet up this demand? We have our rivers, lake and ponds in abundance, more and more people are becoming conscious of their health, a lot of people who know what is used to preserve frozen foods will never imagine themselves eating it. They prefer the fresh fish from our lakes and our rivers. These lakes and rivers have been polluted by our oil dealers. Our fishes are dead and the little ones that are surviving cannot go round. They are just too expensive. People must eat fish; we have no other options than to settle for the chemically preserved frozen fishes that are imported from wherever. It is for these reasons and more that the fish farm business is being introduced where people will learn how to produce more fishes for the purposes of human consumption. The most popular is the cat fish which has been discovered as most rugged and easiest to produce. Research is still on going on some other kinds of fish. Other kinds are being produced but not in high volume yet. THE CAT FISH: I am confident to treat this topic as I am very much into it. I understand the practice well enough and can in confidence say that it is a very viable business for those people who are disciplined, careful and committed. It is a good business to make wealth. This I am very sure of. The production of cat fish seems simple but as simple as it may seem, it is easily killing. I have experienced situations where a person has spent all of his money to produce this fish and feed them and about a month to harvest and recoup all of his monies, he lost all the fish to water shortage. You can imagine, about N2.5million 4 month’s investment lost just like that to poor management of water! WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS I WILL NEED TO DO FISH FARMING? (a) Land and building site. (a) Regular Water supply. (b) Fish ponds- plastics, concrete or earthen. (c) Good species of catfish. (d) Test kits, basins and nets for fish sorting. (e) Farm attendant. (f) The fish feed. (a) Land and building sites: We all may not have the money to acquire land for the purpose of fish farming. A lot of us of course will want to do this in high volume as the higher the volume, the less the cost of producing each unit and the more the returns in cash in harvest but my sincere advise is this, a person who is producing fish for the first time must not go beyond 2000 units. Your returns here may not be much but it gives you a deep experience into the business and practically you would have gone through a lot in rearing the fish from juvenile to maturity stage of the cat fish. Some of them have died, you know the reasons, and some of them you cannot sell because you do not know where the market is and who the true buyers are and so on. All these you cannot read from text books and people cannot lecture you, they are your own unforgettable personal experience. The fish farm business is good. It is why we encourage people practice the first experience in the comfort of their homes. Some of us who are lucky to be living in a three bedroom flat en suite can actually enjoy the practice in one of these rooms. That is if the building is yours or if you are lucky your landlord is in a peaceful agreement with you to practice such. We may also use that little portion of land that is available in the compound, shed it and put the concrete or plastic ponds there. If you are that person that wishes to go all the way, you acquire enough portion of land; you build the concrete and the plastic ponds and design the water network in such ways that it will do you some form of animal husbandry too! WATER SUPPLY: The life of the fish lies in the water. In fact fish is all about water. There is no way you can do fish farm business without a regular supply of water. Just like you and I breathe the air to survive, the fish rest in oxygen in the water to breathe and survive. Fish do not breathe the air we breathe. Fish can still survive 2 days without food but cannot manage in dead water for more than 48hours. The oxygen in water is the air they breathe and this air is exhausted in like 48hours in ponds and must be replaced with fresh water or the fish dies. The oxygen is exhausted and the water polluted and must be replaced by another quantity of fresh or recycled water at least in every 48hrs to replace the used oxygen or the fish dies as fishes are not meant to breathe in direct oxygen. We have various systems and techniques of changing water, the sizes of the pipes to be used for construction, when to change this water and at what time of the day that is best to change water. We shall know when to feed the fish after changing the water, where to put aerator, the bio dish, the percentage of water to remain in the pond when flushing, how to place your pond for easy flow of water to reservoir amongst all other factors. We have different system of water installation to ensure the fish do not run out of good water all of the time. We have the intensive ponds water supply; we have the semi intensive water supply. There is no way we will describe this here that you will understand. It takes professionalism to construct. Consultants are available who have mastered the trade and will do for you the system that will put your mind to rest. FISH PONDS: Plastic, concrete and earthen. There are basically three types of pond for fish farm. (a) The Plastic Pond: I like the plastic pond because of its simplicity. It is hygienic and very easy to manage. It is movable too! A 2000liter tank houses about 480 to 500 fishes conveniently. You will need 4 of 2000liter tank to manage 2000 fishes well. We assume 500 fishes for one tank of plastic pond. The advantage of the tank is that it is easily managed and easy to clean too. In fact you can keep it in the comfort of one of your room as long as you have water running. Standard rooms can convincingly take eight ponds to house 4000 fishes. You can see your fishes clearly as you feed them and you can change the position of your pond any time you feel like it. (b) The Concrete pond: This is also a good pond to manage. It is neat and accessible but the disadvantage here is you cannot move it. Once it is constructed, you are permanently stuck at that spot and it is not something you can construct in the rooms that have your toilet and water close to the rooms unlike the plastic tanks that can even be kept in your bathroom if you have that space for those who like to raise fish for their home consumption and at the same time learn the trade. Concrete ponds are erected outside in the compound mostly with a shed or a form of shed over them. The quantity of fishes you intend to produce is determined by the number of ponds that is available. A concrete pond can stock up to 100,000 fishes or more depending on the volume you want. A plot of land is enough for this. It is usually built with vibrated blocks filled with concrete or washed gravels. The pumps are usually submersible 2hp pumps with cyclone and circulatory filter. We have majors who do the construction perfectly when you in box or call us. A person who wants to do this business fully is targeting about N45million to N50million sales in fish every 4 months. If he is lucky, he does these 3 times in a year and if not, he conveniently rolls this out twice per annum. It is easy to grow out fish once in every 4 months and spare the other 2 months to sell and prepare for another batch of production. If the volume is not this much, I do not see a reason for the break; you just target and roll out fish 3 times in a year. (c) The earthen pond: This is a form of pond constructed in the earth. Usually near the river or trace of bamboo. The soil test is carried out where for instance the soil must not be muddy, sandy and the water retention must be good. Once you throw a portion of the sand molded from your palm up and it scatters, the soil is not suitable as the land cannot retain water. The system is mostly traditional. The ways and venues of construction are usually in swampy areas. We have some earthen ponds we construct near our homes too. The only advantage here is that you do not need changing the water. You only ensure there is water in the earthen ponds always. I also I am informed though I have not practiced, I understand that fish grow bigger in earthen ponds as they have access to some other feeds that come from the earth aside the artificial feeds like the worms and some forms of insects too. The ways these ponds are constructed have experts who are majors in it and will only be advisable intending investors in box or call to meet with them. The truth is we cannot talk construction here and people will understand it is not possible. SPECIES OF CAT FISH: Animals are like men. They have their own heritance, hereditary and genes too. The way they behave, the bones, their built, reactions and bodies are hereditary. It goes from generation to generation. When you grow from a family of shooters, you get giant and fast growing fish, when you grow from the families of runts, you get dwarf or shorted growing fish. It is just like we have in humans. Some families grow big and giant while some eat and grow tiny. They remain dwarfs no matter what you feed them with. It is therefore important that you do your research very well while sourcing your juvenile and be sure the brood stock is a giant. You now make sure the species you get come from this family of giants. Once you select a stock from a family that is runts, dwarf or eat and grow tiny, then you spend your time and money trying to feed them, yet they never develop big and is a shortage to your trade. TEST KITS AND SORTERS: The growing and production of fish seems simple and easy to manage but there are certain factors which must not be taken for granted while dealing this trade. The issues of the test kits for water for instance. Some of us do not know that water contributes a lot to the well being and the growth of humans and fish. Water that is highly acidic affects the growth of both fish and humans. We have kits that are used to test the acidity of water. The ph in water in different places varies and there are simple ways of correcting the ph if we find the water too acidic and containing plenty of irons. Some kits go for N3,000, some more, depending on the type we prefer. There are various forms of sorters too. Some come in forms of nets of N2,000 and some for N5,000 and the sorting basins too for counting. NEXT WEEK MONDAY: We shall discuss, the farm manager, the feed, what to feed and when to feed. We shall discuss when to sort, how to sort and the advantages of regular sorting. We shall also discuss what the profit element is like, how to make the best of profit from the trade. Locating the good buyers and differentiating them from reapers, we shall discuss when to harvest, how well to manage our buyers to register the best of profits in the trade. Some people have given up at their first attempts because they did not get it right and they do not believe in trying again, a period they have learnt their lessons and are now filled with experience on ways to manage the entire crisis that come with the trade. All these interesting factors we cannot treat today, we shall deliberate on them next week. Fish business for the consistent and dedicated fish farmer is a money spinner IF ONLY YOU KNOW THE LANGUAGE THOSE WHO SUCCEED SPEAK. Have a good week ahead. It is Abraham Olonade Olufemi.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:10:07 +0000
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