Friday 22 November 2013
Friday 15 November 2013
Tuesday 5 November 2013
More coverage happening...
The roof is now covered with shade cloth. Late afternoon shade is most welcome as already under the roof things feel slightly warmer than outside on a windless day which is encouraging. We're now adding the sides of the shed/tunnel with galvanised wire once again providing a framework for the shade cloth to be attached to.
Monday 4 November 2013
Slow going....
It is slow work doing it properly. The shade cloth is held to the glavanised wire runs using thinner wire running the length of the supporting wires. So it is a lot of work, but we hope that the result will be a strong one.
Sunday 3 November 2013
Shade cloth going up...
The wire framework for the roof can be clearly seen. We are using a 20% shade cloth to allow maximum sun penetration into the tunnel whilst still providing an additional support for the plastic that will lie on top of the shade cloth later on. In version 2 of the shed we will reverse this and put the shade cloth on top of the plastic. The intention is to protect the skin of the shed from wind - which is the most problematic of the elements beyond our control. A good wind storm can shred a tunnel in seconds and cause significant disruption to operations. We're trying to avoid that as much as possible.
Monday 28 October 2013
Skeleton up...
Now for wire and shade cloth....
This is the completed skeleton of the shed/tunnel. Galvanised wire now needs to be strung out to support the shade cloth and plastic skin. Note that the ground is only compacted for now. Laying a big concrete slab would be nice, but it is very expensive to do so. We have plans to have a concrete floor but for considerably less money. .
Friday 25 October 2013
Poles going up...
The ground poles are in and concreted. The balance of the poles are being installed to make us a big shed in effect. We opted for this route to cost it out in comparison to a conventional steel tunnel. A system like ours can be erected at what we hope to be lower cost, and certainly without specialist labour requirements and barely so much as a drill. The ground did have to levelled and compacted - which does require machinery. It is however a once off expense. In extreme cases terraced land can be used - tunnels or sheds like this one can be constructed in any shape or form and this is a big advantage.
Monday 21 October 2013
Poles in
And concreted. Now for shade cloth and a plastic roof... we will do the sides with plastic once winter arrives. Am aiming at making them removable.
Friday 18 October 2013
With the Chinese at our Dicla Tunnel
The Chinese taking a look....
The Chinese are all over Africa at the moment and what they don't know about farming fish is probably not worth knowing. Of considerable interest was the fact that they claimed carp to be the most farmed fish in China, as opposed to what we thought would be tilapia. It is other countries like Vietnam that farm tilapia more intensively owing to their more conducive weather. China, being as vast as it is has considerably more significant temperature variations.
Also of interest was the comment that there is a lot of small scale farming. This is encouraging for our model for South Africa.
Thursday 17 October 2013
S A Fish Farms and Aquaponics
You may know us as Happy Koi.
We have been working with Koi for 12 years now and whilst we have mainly dealt with expensive imported bloodline collectable Koi the fact remains that the most prized Koi is still a member of the same species known as cyprinus carpio, the common carp.
Carp are a tremendously versatile species and lend themselves to aqua culture well. They are fast growers and reasonably tough fish.
Our vision is to see the common carp used for aqua culture in South Africa. It is a temperate species with an optimum growing temperature of between 22 and 24 Celsius which immediately eliminates the biggest headache of aspirant fish farmers - that of having to heat one's water to 28 or 30 Celsius to grow tilapia. What this means is that it is possible to harvest carp successfully twice a year as winter temperature drops have far less of an effect on the growing season. Tilapia battle to match this.
Hence this blog is our journey on the path to farming carp. We are putting up a pilot facility in Northgate which will serve as a carp grow on facility and as our Koi quarantine facility for Happy Koi. We will also tackle some ideas around aquaponics.
Our systems are not new. They are merely an evolution of what we have always used that is Fit For Purpose. In other words we don't spend money on things we don't need to get the job done. We invest in the things that are important - such as better than excellent filtration and better than excellent ease of maintenance. Our systems are completely modular and scaleable with the nett result that you can start a ten ton per annum fish farm for under R500k and you can do this in incremental steps by simply adding to it. You can start with a single pond, costing you under R30k and scale up to a hundred thousand ponds in short order if you like.
The reason we have adopted this approach is because of the failures in aqua culture, which in South Africa are far more numerous than the successes - at last count may be 50 to 1!?! (it is THAT bad)!
We asked why.
The answers are not easy and they are not simple. But our feeling is that what happens is that people buy into a vision, a dream and spend a lot of money in something that they don't properly understand and which requires a considerable learning curve. By the time the harsh reality sets in that their system is not going to work, two years and countless millions have been wasted, with the only 'victor' the consultant who now having burned his finges retires from aqua culture to go and do something else...
Our approach has always been to do first before we sell. This is something we have carried from the first days we started Happy Koi and we use the systems we sell. In other words, we know our products backwards inside and out - and whatever can go wrong has already gone wrong with us first. Or at least that's the intention.
Hence our pilot plant will be a fully functional multi faceted fish farm, if only on a small scale for now. As our systems are modular you can pick and choose the type of model that you would like to use on your own fish farm and/or aquaponics setup.
Our systems are simple, they are cheap and they are robust. They are ideal to use as a cheap way to learn about farming fish - you will NEVER be successful farming fish at 40kg/ton starting off. This is a recipe for disaster and every single fish farm that has attempted this out of the starting gates has failed. Spectacularly.
Rather our approach is to start you up with a few fish. From there you can ramp up to 10kg/ton, then 20kg/ton and from there scale up. By this stage you will have a good feel for the business and your initial investment in the modular system can be retained to use as your hatchery/fry grow out/quarantine (yes, very important!!!) or you can expand it into a full sized fish farm.
We have a few unique selling points that we use as well. Our systems have the lowest energy requirements on the market. We use less power than anyone else, often by a significant margin.
Our systems can be maintained and overhauled using no more than a spanner and a screwdriver. Any part can be changed out on the fly in minutes by anyone capable of using a spanner or a scewdriver.
Our systems are easy to maintain and require human input. This means you have to have 'eyes on' on your fish farm which is a critical success factor.
And, our systems work. We have proven them over more than a decade now.
So follow us on our new blog as we show you how it all comes together. Then chat to us and let us help you set up your own successful fish farm for far less money than you thought would be possible.
We have been working with Koi for 12 years now and whilst we have mainly dealt with expensive imported bloodline collectable Koi the fact remains that the most prized Koi is still a member of the same species known as cyprinus carpio, the common carp.
Carp are a tremendously versatile species and lend themselves to aqua culture well. They are fast growers and reasonably tough fish.
Our vision is to see the common carp used for aqua culture in South Africa. It is a temperate species with an optimum growing temperature of between 22 and 24 Celsius which immediately eliminates the biggest headache of aspirant fish farmers - that of having to heat one's water to 28 or 30 Celsius to grow tilapia. What this means is that it is possible to harvest carp successfully twice a year as winter temperature drops have far less of an effect on the growing season. Tilapia battle to match this.
Hence this blog is our journey on the path to farming carp. We are putting up a pilot facility in Northgate which will serve as a carp grow on facility and as our Koi quarantine facility for Happy Koi. We will also tackle some ideas around aquaponics.
Our systems are not new. They are merely an evolution of what we have always used that is Fit For Purpose. In other words we don't spend money on things we don't need to get the job done. We invest in the things that are important - such as better than excellent filtration and better than excellent ease of maintenance. Our systems are completely modular and scaleable with the nett result that you can start a ten ton per annum fish farm for under R500k and you can do this in incremental steps by simply adding to it. You can start with a single pond, costing you under R30k and scale up to a hundred thousand ponds in short order if you like.
The reason we have adopted this approach is because of the failures in aqua culture, which in South Africa are far more numerous than the successes - at last count may be 50 to 1!?! (it is THAT bad)!
We asked why.
The answers are not easy and they are not simple. But our feeling is that what happens is that people buy into a vision, a dream and spend a lot of money in something that they don't properly understand and which requires a considerable learning curve. By the time the harsh reality sets in that their system is not going to work, two years and countless millions have been wasted, with the only 'victor' the consultant who now having burned his finges retires from aqua culture to go and do something else...
Our approach has always been to do first before we sell. This is something we have carried from the first days we started Happy Koi and we use the systems we sell. In other words, we know our products backwards inside and out - and whatever can go wrong has already gone wrong with us first. Or at least that's the intention.
Hence our pilot plant will be a fully functional multi faceted fish farm, if only on a small scale for now. As our systems are modular you can pick and choose the type of model that you would like to use on your own fish farm and/or aquaponics setup.
Our systems are simple, they are cheap and they are robust. They are ideal to use as a cheap way to learn about farming fish - you will NEVER be successful farming fish at 40kg/ton starting off. This is a recipe for disaster and every single fish farm that has attempted this out of the starting gates has failed. Spectacularly.
Rather our approach is to start you up with a few fish. From there you can ramp up to 10kg/ton, then 20kg/ton and from there scale up. By this stage you will have a good feel for the business and your initial investment in the modular system can be retained to use as your hatchery/fry grow out/quarantine (yes, very important!!!) or you can expand it into a full sized fish farm.
We have a few unique selling points that we use as well. Our systems have the lowest energy requirements on the market. We use less power than anyone else, often by a significant margin.
Our systems can be maintained and overhauled using no more than a spanner and a screwdriver. Any part can be changed out on the fly in minutes by anyone capable of using a spanner or a scewdriver.
Our systems are easy to maintain and require human input. This means you have to have 'eyes on' on your fish farm which is a critical success factor.
And, our systems work. We have proven them over more than a decade now.
So follow us on our new blog as we show you how it all comes together. Then chat to us and let us help you set up your own successful fish farm for far less money than you thought would be possible.
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