The New Home

Introduction

After about 6 months of rearing the Forth Batch, very soon I found both of the ponds cannot accomodate those big fish anymore. Couple with the fact that my target is to rear 400 tails of fishes so that we will have daily fish supply, there is a need for me to construct a new pond.

My new pond

After much consideration have been taken to build a new pond, I finally agreed to one of the landscaping contractor to build one measuring 18'x4'x5'. My target is to have 18' of water length and 4' of water width and 4' of water depth. By my calculation, my fibre tank can rear 60 tails with a volume of 6'x4'x1 1/2' of water, the new pond will have 6 times of water volume. Theoretically it should be able to accomodate 360 tails but I think 200 should be a more reasonable figure.

The other purpose of the new pond is to serve as a landscape in my garden so we will have more 'water', ah ha!

The construction went on smoothly initially but the contractor somehow after collected about 90% of my payment went disappear, not responding to my followup request. By that time the pond is fully constructed except those filter material not supplied yet. Hence I wouldn't like to recommend the contractor here. This is not really a problem for me as I know where to get all those filtering materials myself.



Transfering to new home

Transfering the Forth batch fishes into the new home give all my children a very good fun time as they will have a chance to catch a lot of big fishes! Some experience which is very difficult to come by for city dwelling children. This opportunity also give us a very good opportunity to work together, me and my children.

One after another one, we caught them and sending them into the big pond. All of them, including the koi, 'bak su kong' and the tilapia nile, we counted about 50 tails, they went into the big pond happily.

The Forth Batch

Introduction

After having experince in rearing fish for the following batches:

First batch: 150 tails of cat fish
2nd batch: 40 tails of Tilapia Nile
3rd batch: 40 tails of Pantin

I am ready to rear more fishes after I move to USJ 1. This time, I decided to rear 90 tails of tilapia Nile in the beginning of August 2007. Six months later which is close to Chinese New Year 2008, we should have more than enough fish for our new year celebration.

My ponds

Here I have 2 ponds, 1 is a fibre tank measuring 6'x4'x2.5' and the other is a concrete cement pond measuring 10'x2'x1'.

Fibre tank.

I purchased this fibre tank from one of the aquarium shop and placed it in the laundry area which is at the back of the house. This place is not so much expose to sun light and most importantly, the area is secured by sliding grill. In this pond I put in 60 tails of fish fries purchased from Mr. See. Length of the fries are about 4".

Cement pond (Planter pond)

This cement pond was originally meant to use as a planter box. It is located just beside the car porch and it has good sun light exposure. I worked on the conversion of the planter box over the weekend over a period of few weeks. A small section of it I use it for filtering purpose. I will call this pond by its original usage name. In this pond, I put in 30 tails of tilapia nile, same batch that I purchased from Mr. See.


These tilapia nile together with some koi fish, 'Bak Su Kong' in the pond, there are about 40 tails in total.









The intial 3 months growth

This is the first time I have a chance to rear fish with sun light exposure and be able to compare them with those rear in house. The result is fantastic. Those in the Planter pond grew much faster than those in the fibre tank! In the first 3 months, on average they are almost half the size bigger than those in the fibre tank.

The next 3 months growth

In the next months that follow, however, the situation changed. The planter pond became so crowded (I have only about 10" of water depth) so the fishes' growth are slowing down. We notice those in the fibre tank is getting bigger than those in the planter box.

As a result of this finding, I realize that:

i) Fish grows faster with sun light
ii) Fish also will grow bigger with bigger pond









On the left is a picture taken from the planter pond. Tilapia Nile has very beautiful pink color body and I really like their colour exspecially in the evening when you look at them about 10 feets away.

Every year has fish (Nian nian u yu)

This Chinese New Year 2008, the fishes are big enough for our consumption. Chinese has one saying in Mandarin "Nian nian u yu" which means every year you shall have some harvest left. In the older days, farmers shall be very happy if they have some harvest left at the end of the year, when the new year come, they will have new harvest and if every year they have some harvest left that means they will not be starving in the future and they will become richer.






The picture on the left: 800 grams








After about 6 months of carefully taking care of the fishes, they grew into a weigh range of 600 grams to 800 grams. We tried the first one, it is so fresh and taste well.

We gave some to our relative and neighbour and also didn't forget to wish them "Nian Nian U Yu".

436 tails of baby fishes

New discovery

This event happened on 13 Apr 08.

Today is a very special day, though my routine is still like normal.

As usual I went to the big pond to look at the fishes after I fetched Ying Ying back home. Initially everything seems like normal and I feed them as usual. Suddenly I found there is some thing very strange at the edges of the pond. There is a lot of tiny little things swimming there and at first I tought they are mosquitoes. However, I decided to take a closer look and to my surprise they are not the mosquitoes but apparently they are very small tiny little fish fries just hatched. I shouted and scream and was so excited to inform all others, "our fishes are breeding!"

Big fishes are eating the tiny little ones

Soon after, Ying Ying discover that the bigger fish is eating the tiny little ones and of course we become so nervous and I quickly called Mr. See (my fries supplier) to get advise from him if I should quickly separate the tiny little ones from the big ones. Of course, obviously we have to do it as quickly as possible.

So we tried to scoop them up but they are so tiny and couple with the fact that the water level is about 1 1/2 feet below, it is quick difficult for us to do that from the ground. So I decided to go into the pond!

In the pond

In the pond, the job become much more easier and I can't really remember how many scoops I have picked up. Luckily the tiny ones like to swim up to the surface and that make the job lots more easier.

"Ah!" Suddenly I felt like something bit my foot! I quickly look down in the water and it seems one of the biggest tilapia is brave enough to come close and bite me. I lifted my leg and expect it to be scared and go away. It did swim away a little but surprisingly it came back! This is a bit strange! There are about 50 tails of tilapia in this pond, all the others kept a distance from me but why this particular one not only it is not scare of me but keep coming back to bite my leg!

I became to wonder, could this be the mother or the father of the little ones? I think it is the mother and I shall call it 'Mei' for the beautiful flowery pattern she has. Of course it is very likely but I can't get the answer immediately. To find the answer, I believe I would need to catch it to examine further on its sex. Luckily, it's bite were not so painful and I continue to scoop all the tiny little ones.

When the job is completed, I came out of the pond and still observe that Mei kept circling around the place where I stood just now while all the other fishes are still far and away. Occasionally some fishes get closer but they will be quickly chase away by Mei. She seemed sad but trust me, I have done this to secure your babies.

Transfer to the side pond

Luckily my side pond is empty after we have transferred all the bigger tilapia to the big pond. I decided that we should count the number! With the help of my maid, we counted slowly. Every time we scoop up, we can only try between 3 to 5 tails because we would be able to count correctly because they are swimming around quickly.

Finally we counted all, it is 430 tails! When my son came back from school, he was so excited too and he managed to catch another 6 tails, so the total is 436 tails!

Video

Below is a short video taken after a few days, the tiny little ones are growing!





1 May 08

5 days I was away to Labuan for the Malaysia Water Festival job from 24 Apr to 29 Apr 08, these little babies have grown up to about 2 cm long.

EHIEM Compact+ 5000

I got to know this brand through my friend and he was amazed by its reliability and durability.

This pump is from made in Germany and it is expensive.

Brief spec of the pump:

l/h 2500 - 5000
GPH 550 - 1100 (Imp) 660 - 1321 (US)
Hmax m 3.0
W 78
Dim, mm 138x82x126



I used this in my six feet fiber tank and it is strong and until now I am still using it.

Price, RM590

Some of the key feature of this pump include:

High adjustable output in a compact size,

1. For use in water
2. Can also be used outside water (hose adapter included)
3. Adjustable output
4. Delivery head 3.0 m



My usage experience:

I put the pump in the water inside the fiber tank, connected to a uv hanging at about 5 feet high and it is running well without much problem at the inlet, though my water get dirty very fast when all my tilapia are between 600 gram to 800 grams (there are about 60 tails) inside the 6'x4' tank and my water depth is about 2'. My filter was not good enough and I think it is too small and during the last 2 months, I practically abandoned the filter and just filter the water with sponge.

Change water every week

As a result, the water gets dirty very fast in that kind of population and water need to be replaced every week. Luckily my maid can do it well!

The pump is working fine

So the pump is in a tough environment but nontheless, it is working fine. Never got jammed with the dirt, never breakdown yet still giving me strong output of water.

Ref:
Eheim website: http://www.eheim.de/

Download:
Manual for Eheim Compact Plus 2000_3000_5000 (1.61MB)