How to plan start up of fish farm part 1

Planning the start up of fish farm is an essential step to the new and old fish farmer in the fish farm business.

The plan would help  the farm  to know early :

• When and how to stock fish in the pond
• Who and where to sells to get good profit
• Placements of  structures in the farm
• How much money to start  with and  how to grow business

 In creating plan for the fish farm various methods are used,  but  i will give a simple method that is familiar with your scenarios.

The cost of land and other variable capital (CAPEX) are being excluded due to be variable  and tend to be different  based  on different areas.

Note 

When plan setup of fish farm ,the farmer  should plan based on amount of cash available and not cash expected due to the fact that cash expected may sometimes reach you in late time.

  Planning based on size  of land available

In this method , a fish farm is planned based on the size of the land available hence plan based on your location this method a farmer supposed to have information   like 

• Size of various structures to be fit on the land
• Cost of feed
• FCR
• Estimated salary for workers
• Mortality rate
• Cost of fingerlings

 Steps used shoud be taken to reach the plan

To make easy,we shall put example  in order to understand well the steps

Example:Mr James  with  a  (20m x 50m )  land want to start fish farming business .Since he has no knowledge of fish farming ,he approach  you  .He want to know what can be fit into the land and how much it will cost him.

                                 Solution

1. Find out the size of the area

         20 m x 50 m = 1000  sq m

      

      2.List all structures to be fit on the space

•  Accommodation
• Storage
• Ponds

    3.Divide land for each structure

• Pond  85%
• accommodation  7%     
• Empty space 5%
• storage 2 %

 4.Convert land allocation  for each structure to exact measures

• Pond  850 sq m
• storage 20 sq m
• empty space 50 sq m
• accommodation 70 sq m

5.Decide type of pond you intend 

* Mr James  intend to put concrete pond.

6.Calculate stocking capacity of each pond 

  Stocking capacity of concrete pond is 70  per cubic meter. But we have decided to put 1000 fish/pond

Therefore, pond capacity is  14.28 cubic meter ( 1000 fish /70  cubic meter )

14.28 cubic meter = 1.2m  depth x 2.4 m  width x 4.9 m length

note : Normally this is calculated by estimate first depth (1.2 m)  then width (2.4 m).  (1.2 m x 2.4

 m = 3 m). To get length  9 14.28 /2.4 = 4.9 m)

7. Divide allocated land space for pond by size of  each pond

• Total pond area =850  sq m
• Total sq m per pond :

        Pond length x width = 11.76  sq m

• Total possible number of ponds can be constructed in the land  

        Total pond area /totals sq  per pond 

         850 sq m /11.76 sq m  = 72 ponds

8.Multiply stocking capacity  of each pond  by total number of ponds that fit into the  land space

 * You can take whole 72 ponds  or you can multiply based on your ability of pond you can actually build  for example  Mr James can construct  only 5 ponds 

  then  

 5 ponds x  1000 fish per pond =5000 fingerlings