Hi ECHO family!
I’m in West Africa, and looking to start some fish ponds in the lowland area of our farm. Last year, we did rice production with approximately 35 paddies in this area. It was too labor intensive, and now I am trying to see if raising tilapia would work instead. The water depth is between 1 m to 18 cm, depending on the paddy. The berms are broken down in a lot of places, so they will need fixed.
My concern is draining. I see the ECHO community notes advice against the lowland because it’s harder to drain. Our site mostly dries out entirely each dry season. How would you advise I raise Tilapia in this seasonally flooded lowland? Would you advise against it entirely? Our sites have water from roughly the end of April to the end of October or mid November. If I don’t do tilapia in this lowland, do you have alternative ideas for something less labor intensive than rice? Thanks!
try SRI? Rice does not like water, but many other things do, including Tilapia. See Asia, Cambodia, Vietnam, China for paddy aquaculture…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice-fish_system
I am not sure where exactly you are but the nonprofit that I run operates in Liberia. We generally use low land sites for tilapia, so I think you are probably OK with that. Feel free to contact Sylvester at this email, and he can advise you or put you in touch with one of his aquaculture people. He is in Bomi and Nimba counties, if that means anything to you. sylvesterkpaisr@gmail.com. I will let him know that you might be contacting him.
Thanks Jeffrey! That does mean something to me. I’m travelling to Lofa county tomorrow for a few days, but I’ll reach out to him soon after that. I’m hoping to travel to Nimba at some point, too. Blessings!
Hi,
I am working in Cambodia where the land is very flat and floods in the wet season. Rice is the main crop. They manage the water by digging deep ponds and drains that collect the excess water. These ponds and drains are great for native fish that breed in the ponds. The ponds fill up in the wet season and the water then spreads into the rice fields. The fish come out as the water rises and spread through the rice fields. As the water dries at the end of the wet season the fish return to the deep ponds. The people put fish traps in the water to catch the fish. We have also released tilapia into our ponds because they grow bigger than the native fish. Having fish in the water is very effective in controlling mosquitos.
We have used an excavator to dig the ponds which can be 3 to 4 m deep. The soil from the pond is used to raise the land for pathways and locations for housing so the house area does not flood in the wet season. The excavator costs money but the benefits for fish production, control of water and mosquitos, and dry areas for housing means it is very worthwhile.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Don