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.