7 REASONS YOU SHOULD NOT USE EARTHEN POND FOR YOUR FISH FARM

Aquaculture is the most lucrative agribusiness. People are really making it in manifolds in this venture, it is one of the lucrative businesses one can invest in and make good return.

However, every business has its own Achilles heel. For a business to strive well and stay ahead of the packs, it has to meet certain conditions and adhere to certain precautions.

Aquaculture is a function of so many factors, be it catfish or tilapia, housing is key for its success. Everyone knows the water bodies(river, ocean, lake) is the natural habitat for this creature but it can be modified to suit water bodies conditions to abode the fishes.

There are many forms of housing or pond for fishes, like concrete pond, earthen pond, plastic pond and tarpaulin pond. All these have peculiar and fascinating features but their degree of efficiency in terms of their advantages and disadvantages varies greatly.

The earthen and concrete ponds are widely used for commercial purposes. But I will like to lay emphasis on the earthen pond as it’s the subject of discussion.

Though spacious and it’s the natural habitat for fishes, the earthen pond have more disadvantages compare to other forms of pond. It has been the major reasons why most farmers run into loss unknowingly.

Here are points that we can both reason and think along.

• Ammonia Buildup: the rate at which ammonia augments inside this pond is alarming. It cannot be easily detected as it would be noticed in concrete ponds. The water itself is not clean with the addition of the waste of the fishes it becomes more concentrated and may leads to loss of reasonable amount of fishes. Though some farmers do pump out the water at a particular period but these it not enough because it cannot be 100% effective.                  
• Inability to sort: sorting of fishes is key to maximizing profits, the fishes have different growth rate. This can only be observed through proper sorting. It is advisable to sort once in every two weeks to attain good yield. In earthen pond, this can never be done. Ones the fishes have been stocked; they are only evacuated during harvesting.                                                              
• Inability to determine the feed intake of the fishes: fishes have this aggressive nature when fed but not all the fishes actually pick up the feeds. That's is why in most earth ponds, the fishes are always of huge size difference because only they bigger fishes eat the larger portion of the feed with the smaller ones being bullied.        
• High rate of cannibalism: cannibalism is a major threat in fish business. The outgrown fishes tend to prey on the smaller ones. This reduces the amount of fishes stocked and relatively leading to huge loss.                           
• Harvesting inconvenience: You will definitely agree with me that, it is not always easy to harvest fishes from earthen pond. More labour is required, adding to the cost of production.                                          
• Flooding/Erosion: This is a big problem; if this occurs, the farmer can lose all his investment.    

• Predator invasion: Predators like alligator prey greatly on fishes. They can easily enter the pond and eat up considerable number of fishes.

All these are personal experience; a farmer should always do what will maximize his profit. Invest your money properly and avoid unnecessary risk.

Remember, anything worth doing at all, is worth doing wel