Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

While checking out some farms that I new were there I found a few more

Its a shame to see some... most not doing anything

These are around Perth WA

Man they look rs dont they

More...

Last couple.

Which probably suggests that the financials of fish farming might not be what many think they are...

Some of those places are huge!... just trying to get my head around the daily runnings of a place like that

OH I dident include golden ponds or a couple of others that are pretty obvious to us and my not want to be shown

I like capture 4.....

why?

Whats not to like...

Does make one nervous.

But if Ap is as good as we say it is we should have all over those operations :-)

The scale that is required to make a go of it it enormous. We have 10 ponds, plus all the RAS in the shed and there is no way it is enough to make a living out of. The biggest factor is climate. If it is too cold for barra or silvers to grow all year round, then forget those species. And trout.... check out the farm gate price for trout as you have to assume wholesale prices in all calcs. And factor in the risk of mass losses through no fault of your own , nature etc. Have a look at how many fish farms there are in Oz compared to how many aquaculture licenses are in OZ, I will get the figures for SA, you may be surprised.

Yeah scale is king.

The economies of scale on our system are not great but we had to start some where. Mind you it does stand up on its own from the modeling we have done and once we proove that the system works and pays its own way then the case for expansion will be relatively easy because their will be so much expenditure that we dont have to duplicate.

Of 93 category B licenses in SA, which is people trying to make a profit, of which we are one, 49 are either surrendered or expired.

Of the remaining, I could count around 10 which are actually involved in the business of making a living through aquaculture that I know of... ie the rest of them as far as I know would be paying their fees to keep the license because it would never be able to be got back.I know, to get the license here, it cost them 35 hours of consultancy @$145 per hour, plus fronting the council, EPA etc. Now I am reluctant to let the license lapse, but what is the point paying if I can't make a profit? I know one thing, if you google map me, half my ponds are full, half are empty, and in 12 months, only one will be full and the RAS will be turned off. I will hold broodfish for future attempts at spawning if I have nothing better to do, but I won't bother growing any more fish out. And having plants attached to the RAS didn't make it better, it made it harder. More labour, more mucking around, no profit.

There are also another 143 aquaculture category A licenses in SA, many of them have yabbies, marron , perch on their species list

A while back, I was talking to a bloke who brings his yabbies in from WA for his farm restaurant because no one in SA is producing them..... that sure says something to me if only about yabbies..

yabbies are pricks