The fish farm is the site and base for the fish culture that should meet the normal needs of fish in various stages like fish life, growth, development, and 
breeding, and should be in favor of production management, integrated utilization, work efficiency promotion, and economic benefits. Therefore, when it comes to how to start a fish farm, especially a commercial one, fish farmers need to analyze the market, be cautious about site selection, persist in the principle of scientific design and strict construction quality control, and carry out high-efficiency fish farm management mode, etc. Only in this way can newly built fish farms lay the foundation for increasing both production and income, creating economic effectiveness and providing a favorable ecological environment as well.
Market Analysis in The Prior Period
During the market analysis, fish farmers need to learn about the popular fish types in the local market, the existing fish market supply and market demand, the overall consumption situation, the fish farming development policies, and so on. It’s very important to conduct a practical market analysis for commercial operations. Through the strong foundation of analysis, fish farm businessmen can be fully aware of the factors influencing demands, exploit potential markets, and make reasonable arrangements for product allocation, all of which can help to reduce faults, improve the scientificity and validity of decision-making, thereby lower the business risk to the minimum. In a word, businessmen can better know the proportional relationship between market fish supply and demand, adopt the right business strategy, meet market demand for fish, and enhance the economic benefits via detailed market analysis of local fish farming.
Site Selection of Commercial Fish Farm
For fish farm building, site selection is extremely important, which should consider several main factors, including water source, water, and soil property, traffic conditions fish feed, etc. Specifically speaking, there are four aspects to grasp.
1. Abundant water with good water quality. As we all know, water is the first and foremost condition for fish farms, no matter in the wet season or dry season, there must be enough water sources to satisfy the maximum water consumption of ponds during the cultural period. So it’s very necessary to build commercial fish farms and dig fishponds near rivers, lakes, or reservoirs, and acquire detailed knowledge of water quality conditions at the same time, avoiding the pollution caused by the emission of industrial wastewater, poisonous sewage, or others. In general, water source and quality should conform to fishery water quality standards GB11607 and pond water quality should accord with pollution-free food freshwater aquaculture water criteria NY5051-2001.
2. Appropriate soil property. Usually, soil texture is divided into three types, loam, clay, and sandy soil. It’s best to choose loam to build ponds because its water permeability and water-retaining property of loam are moderate, and loam’s cohesion and shear strength are suitable when diking.
3. Fit and proper terrain. The ideal terrains refer to flat and open places with moderate altitude, like near a river or lake, or flat areas under a reservoir dam, where water can flow automatically either for inflow or drainage, not only saving power but also operating conveniently. In the actual operation, there are 3 points to be considered as follows: low-lying areas that are easy to be overwhelmed by a flood and highland areas that are easy to be lack water resources if drought; inconvenient traffic and operations and large investments if building stair-type fishpond; trying to make the most of poor ground instead of occupying fertile farmland.
4. Easy transportation and better source of fish feed. Because there are always materials in and out in fish farms, it’s essential to start a commercial fish farm at places with easy transportation, in favor of the purchase of fish feed and the sales of fish products. Meanwhile, fish bait sources (including fish feed and fertilizer) should be guaranteed, trying to obtain materials from local places and playing the role of natural bait materials. Additionally, power must be equipped, or the water pump, fish feed machine, and other power plants cannot run.
Freshwater Fish Farming Environment Condition
Fish Farm Management Mode
Except for the advanced cultivation technology, modern and high-efficiency fish farm management is also very important for starting a successful fish farm business. With good fish farm administration mode, owners can make sure their staff operates according to standards, avoid unnecessary loss, and enhance working efficiency, thus achieving the biggest profits. Generally speaking, fish farm management mode can be subdivided into several aspects, including fingerling releasing management, fish feed management, feeding management, fish disease control, pharmaceutical administration, environmental sanitary administration, operating rules for the production technology, breeding log management, capture and transportation management and so on.
1. Fingerling releasing management: Choose the lively fingerlings with normal body type, soigne size, and vivid color when releasing. The stocking density should depend on pond condition, fish feed supply condition, fish type and size, management level, and other aspects, and the stocking density relates directly to adult fish yield. So we suggest confirming the reasonable trash volume after finding out the basic requirement of fish type, survival rate, and scheduled output.
2. Fish feed management: Please choose the fish feed conforming to the safety requirements of non-environmental pollution aquatic products, without non-standard feed additives. The feed should be stored in a dry and ventilated warehouse with rat-proofing, insect-proofing, and waterproof equipment, ensuring the feed won’t mildew and go bad. Moreover, choose clear weather to transport fish feed and bring back the inspection certificate of each patch feed for reference.
3. Feeding management: Correct feeding can accelerate fish growth and raise the output. During the process of cultivation, in order to guarantee the timely supply of fish feed, it’s necessary to make reasonable arrangements and feeding plans. There are four points about feeding, namely, fixed point, fixed time, fixed quality, and fixed quantity. Proper feeding can be helpful for checking fish feeding situation, feeding place cleaning, degassing, and fish disease prevention, which has great significance in improving feeding efficiency.
4. Breeding log management: In order to ensure the quality, sanitary safety, and traceability of cultured fish, it’s indispensable to record cultivation work, check the records regularly, and correct issues once found. In the meantime, commercial fish farm owners should attach importance to the training and study of aquaculture workers, continuously boosting the breeding technology and quality. Actually, the feeding log mainly contains the pond serial number, fingerlings releasing volume, weather, water temperature, water depth, transparency, feeding quantity, feeding time, fish medicine use and effect, etc. The log needs to be recorded and preserved by the point person.
Importance & Necessity of Fish Feed
As is well known, for all commercial fish farms, fish feed has become the most important nutritional source of fish growth. In the whole cost of running a commercial fish farm, fish feed can occupy a large part because of the high price, averaging up to 50%-60%, some even up to about 70%. Therefore, lowering fish feed costs is very significant for better economic benefits. Fortunately, by taking proper measurements and improving feed utilization efficiency, the high cost of fish feed can be decreased. Here, FANWAY provides several points to help decrease the fish feed cost, such as breeding superior quality fingerlings, keeping good water quality, preventing fish disease, feeding fish properly, ensuring fish feed nutrition, and most importantly, producing fish feed by your own via a fish feed machine.
With a series of fish feed machines, feed pellets are produced via scientific blend according to the nutrition needs of fish growth at different stages, mixing various feed raw materials (including roughage, concentrated feed, and feed supplement, etc.) and using fish feed crusher to grind and fish feed mixer to blending uniformly, then using fish feed pellet extruder for final feed pellet, no matter floating or sinking fish feed pellet. As the leading professional fish feed machine manufacturer, we have lots of fish feed machines with high quality and stable performance, such as dry/wet type fish feed extruders, fish feed mixers, droplet fish feed crusher, fish feed hammer mill, fish feed dryer, fish feed cooler, and fish feed pellet packaging machine, etc.
Advantages of Pellet Fish Feed Machine
1. Fish feed pellets from fish feed extruder machines have uniform blends and balanced nutrition, which can effectively avoid the malnutrition risk of fish.
2. Improve the palatability of fish feed and increase feed intake. Compared with traditional feeding way separating roughage from concentrated feed, pellet feed can kill harmful germs through specific maturing technology, and also promote the growth and propagation of probiotics in the fish body, accelerating nutrition absorption and advancing the efficiency of feed pellet.
3. Practices show that using fish feed pellets after several months cannot only lower over 90% of digestive diseases but also strengthen the immune system of fish and reduce the happening of epidemic disease.
4. Raise healthy growth speed and shorten the marketing period. According to various nutrition needs in each stage, fish feed pellet machine can produce feeds with a more accurate formula, which greatly enhances the daily increment.
