My Less Than 3rd World Hatchery

During Christmas break from school a couple of ears ago, my wife Ok Sun (pronounced Oak Soon) and I decided to take another step in our business and start hatching out Tilapia, which we could grow out and sell as fingerlings to other farmers, and as food fish for sell on our farm. We call it our Less Than 3rd World Hatchery because it was built from scratch with a lot of sweat equity, recycled materials, Home made equipment and no assistance from the U.S. Government. Fine with us, we don't want their fingers in the pie, it's pretty thin already. As I have stated before, I don't do debt, so our farm is completely paid for including all equipment and stock. when the economy went sour for most folks in America, it didn't really hurt our production model, except for a 300% feed price increase. However Our customers, the majority of which are beholding to the financial institutions of America, were hurt severely. Most of the fish farms where I had hoped to sell fingerlings are no longer in business. Our farm gate customers (walk in individuals) slowed considerably and the cost of production couldn't be offset by the amount of business for Tilapia, or compete with cheap (Safe?) imported fish. Even though our fish were live when purchased vs frozen and shipped from wherever, and the cost was only about 20% higher, customers opted for rancid over fresh. What's a country boy going to do? We locked the door and will re-open when the economy rebounds. We considered trying to get a government contract to provide fish for state and congressional dinners, but that would be like selling to ourselves because, you know they would tax us to cover the cost. Anyway enough of the whining, here are a few pics of the hatchery and tilapia.

These are our breeders, they are quite small, around 450g, we still get about 100 eggs per female per week.

These tiny fish are just days old, they are from a single brood and are ready to be transferred to a tank

These fish are between 3 weeks and 5 weeks old, they will stay in this tank fore about 4 months

These fish are about 2-3 months old, really starting to eat more and grow faster

The Pastor and some ladies from church were over for dinner, these guys were the guests of honor, about 1.5lbs each.

What do a Wal-mart swimming pool and our grow-out tanks have in common? They are identical. 600 fish in here.

A little emergency evacuation of ammonia gasses, and infusion of oxygen