Updates about Fish farm in Malawi = Plastic liners + dirt + goals in April

~ fishfarmblog

JMinich_liners01

While the conference was great and I have made significant strides in moving forward with research opportunities, we are pressing forward back at the farm on the fish pond project. The water proofing procedure using animal manure and clay seemed to reduce water seepage significantly, but we continued to have problems with water seeping through the bottom of the pond so we decided to move forward with plan C, a plastic liner. Plastic liners come in all shapes in sizes including LDPE, HDPE, PVC, and others. The Low Density Polyethylene ‘LDPE’ is the least expensive at around .5 to 1USD / m2 and comes in a variety of thickness namely up to 1000 micron or 1mm. High Density or HDPE is the most expensive and also the strongest and ranges in price from 3-7 USD/m2. PVC is in the middle range at around 2-3 USD/m2 and is the most UV resistant. LDPE and HDPE both break down over time with exposure to UV rays and thus do not last as long whereas PVC plastic is generally not as strong. In Malawi, the only available material is LDPE at 75 to 250 micron in thickness. Most fish farmers recommend at least 1000 micron, but researchers at the National Aquaculture Center in Malawi assured me that if you cover the liner with dirt, you can reduce UV exposure and get 3-5 years out of your liner before replacing. Since importing materials from China would add time and significant costs with duty tariffs, we decided to go with Malawian made plastic liners. We spent all last week and some days, using irons to melt plastic sheets together in the hall of the ICA secondary school.

JMinich_liners02Many of the youngsters were excited about this project and several jumped in to help. Today we transported the almost fully assembled liner to the farm site and began to fill in with dirt.

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We had one final section which we needed to iron, and used portable charcoal irons to complete that task in the field. We will continue filling in with dirt, which has several added benefits one being a source of N and P nutrients and perhaps most importantly bacteria, until the pond is ready to be filled with water-which will take 2-4 weeks. We are aiming to have fish by the end of April.

J. MINICH

4 thoughts on “Updates about Fish farm in Malawi = Plastic liners + dirt + goals in April”

    1. Pla makes corner of the bunds curved.I have experienced with shrimp farm aquaculture construction work and hatchery construction design established work experience.if u required inform I support to u

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    2. Thanks Chris for your support on this project. With its higher temperatures, access to higher quality feeds, and other promising species of fish, I believe Uganda has the potential to take advantage of fish farming both to support children’s nutrition but also to generate funds.

      Blessings,
      Jake

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  2. Thanks, for the comments. When we did repairs to our tank, we made sure to fill in the seems where the wall met the floor with concrete on a slope. We also did this about 0.5 m up the wall of the pond to support and ‘fill in’ the corners.

    Cheers,
    Jake

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