Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good to hear you had some luck there mate. The fish are in really good shape and at 3 bucks, they are a bargain. Look forward to hearing your progress.

Geez , that makes for a good buy, get in quik before they are all gone.

I love it, they are incredibly cheap, and we are picking some up next week... But at the same time I can't help but wonder, whether this sort of thing might be adversely affecting our ongoing suppliers in WA... I mean, we have been recommending people should buy fish from the regular suppliers in WA who are always there supplying fish most of the year, like troutman, golden ponds, Carey nagel, etc, etc, and these people have been supplying regularly all year round to people for their aquaponic systems.

But now we get a cheap supply through government supported sources, where the prices are artificially low, and perhaps in a way, that is doing the regular suppliers out of important business which they rely on to keep themselves in business.

I don't know, I'd be interested in hearing others thoughts, on this...

See I'm the sort of person who doesn't buy fuel from the cheap "cash in your dockets" type fuel stations, I'd rather support the little guys.

Is this similar to the fuel debate in a way?

I know that a while back there was a flood of cheap silver perch here in WA that hurt some of the local breeders and suppliers that couldn't match the subsidised prices, and I wonder whether that may cause issues in the long term..?

Perhaps this might be worthy of a new thread?

I will always call up Tm first, and go from there. Unfortunately TM didn't have any silvers this summer

A bargain is a bargain. If you want barra you do whats available. People buy fish from whoever they want to. Without the Tafe there would not be a lot of fish.Tony says he sell fish to Golden Ponds Gavin and I'm sure plenty of others. Trout and Silvers I ring Gavin 1st. Barra whatevers cheapest.
Cheers

How so Joel? You would rather support the little guys and buy the barra anyway. Odd.

How is $3 a 200gram fish cheap? My caclulator makes that $15/kg. That sounds like the current price for live barra.

Keep in mind, these are not fingerlings and there are only about 200. How does is this massive amount of barra hurting the hatcheries?

I think it is more about the quantities on offer x price. If the TAFE were flooding the market with these fish at a reduced rate then that would effect the market. However if there is only limited quantities available then I don't think that it would effect the supply market too much.

We did try Golden Ponds 1st, however their fish were too small for only one summer growing season. We do not want to heat our tank over the winter.

Swamp-Y

Just a comment Paul.. We don't have a fingerling industry like you people do over in the east, over here it's very finicky.

I dont understand how anyone could make a profit growing a fish to 200 gram and selling for $3.
Considering they have heated the tanks over winter, the food, water, losses that need to be accounted for,rent, and depreciation, and then you have to pay a staff member to take care of them up to that point.

If they were bred up north in open water nets so the only real cost is food I would understand, but in Perth there is no way that $3 ea is feasible IMO.

Andrew

Paul this is a very cheap price, you even wrote a few posts earlier that:


I also find it interesting that on your website you are offering 140 to 160gm Barra for $6 each.
http://www.earthangroup.com.au/advanced ... undi/1057/
I make that almost $43 a kilo. Are Barra really that much more expensive in Qld??

As Werdna says you couldnt make a profit selling 200gm Barra for $3 ea but being a TAFE making a profit isnt necessary. The bottom line is that Freo TAFE are the only ones with the facilities to breed Barra in the SW of WA and as most locally sourced Barra originate from there we are lucky to be able to get stock from them. The options for fish legally permitted for use in Aquaponics systems in WA is so restricted that without the option of Barra over the summer months there would be no alternative other than Silvers.

Like I said, they are a good price and 15 bucks a kg is the going rate for live barra on the east coast, well it was 15.80 a few weeks back in Sydney delivered from QLD live. Work the costs on that Andrew... The ones being sold out of Murdoch are not fingerlings and need to be sold quickly so the system can be shut down.

The barra on my site, you will also notice are not mine, they are from a system I built last year as it says. The price was set by the seller not me. As a result none have sold...

Previous to that we were selling 100 gramish jade perch for a dollar a pop. That is 10 bucks a kg and jades are fetching the same as barra at 15 bucks live.

Also we were moving 150 gram murray cod for $5 each, while these were not that cheap the prices of both were out of necessety to spediate their sale as the farm had to be de-stocked.

As a result we moved out 4 tonne of both this week.

Considering, advanced stock this time of year over there are none existent, and lucky to get them even if Joel bought all of them the day I posted. Also I find the attitude towards Challenger odd when they heavily promote both you Troutman, the other hatcheries and Backyard aquaponics.

Challenger are a commercial hatchery that sells millions of fish each year, I really do not see any drama for 200 odd fish that are practically grown out.

Earthan, both Joel and Troutman actually said that the Barra from Challenger were a good price...

I realise that John, however hinting at undercutting hatcheries, artificially low prices etc. They are not really cheap from what I can see, they are certainly a bargain as I said and in line with wholesale live fish prices.

From a Profit point of view, most barra farms that I know of are making a profit at that price, though they are pushing to raise the price to 18 bucks a kg.....

Perhaps I am not reading the posts right.

As you said, given the shortage of supply at the moment... prices are probably higher than average...

And the reality is for anyone wanting to stock Barra and get them to size before water temps drop off...

Then they need to get them as large as possible now.... and pay the price accordingly...