Vietnam and we're going to visit a farm of Basa. You know Basa is one of these catfish from
Asia that is sold everywhere in the world. That's one of the most farmed fish.
So today we go and we visit the fish farm
in Vietnam that's a really big fish farm and that's a special fish farm that is sustainably
certified. Before anything, give me a like. Give a like to this video, share it with your
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This is a guide that is going to help you
to build your own aquaponics setup and to produce your own food at home. It's free and I designed it to help you to
build your aquaponics setup with success. Enjoy the video. Today we are in Vietnam in the Mekong Delta
visiting a Basa farm, and this farm is a bit special because it's certified ASC and GLOBALG.A.P.,
Which means Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Global Good Aquaculture Practice which
is actually two certifications of sustainability.
So here we got 11 ponds, really big ponds. You can see at the back. And they are really full of Basa, which is
a fish that is sold everywhere in the world. And sorry.
I wearing some glasses because the sun is
very strong here so I have to keep those glasses. Otherwise, I would not be able to make this
video correctly. So here we can see some kind of floats or
boats where we got some fish food prepared to feed. Oh excellent.
Can we go in? Lady: Yeah. Jonathan: Excellent and how many fish do we
have in those ponds? Lady: Its about 700 tons. Jonathan: 700 tons per pond? In this pond, we got 700 tons of fish. Wow! That's crazy.
And so we got 700 tons of fish and then when
you grow to which size? You grow them to which size? To 1 kilo? Before you harvest them? Lady: Usually, I keep until the suitable size
for production. Jonathan: Oh, for the production, yeah. Lady: And then we harvest. Jonathan: Yeah, and so what is a suitable
size for production, approximately? Lady: It depends on the contracts.
Jonathan: On the contracts, yeah? So it goes from what? 500 Grams to 2 kilos? Lady: Yeah. Jonathan: Approximately? So when those fish reach the maximum size,
what is going to be the maximum quantity of fish you will have here? Lady: Its maximum about 850 when we will
harvest. Now, dont keep until 1 kilo. Jonathan: How much food has been thrown in
the water right now? What is the quantity of food? Lady: They feed twice a day.
Jonathan: Twice a day? Yeah? Lady: And each time its about 5 tons. Jonathan: 5 tons? So 10 tons a day. Wow! Okay. 700 Tons? And they feed 10 tons.
Okay. Wow! That's impressive. And so they're going to harvest them soon
as you say. They're going to harvest 70 tons per day of
fish.
Right? Lady: Yes. Jonathan: So Basa is a fish that is sold everywhere
in the world because the flesh is really white. It doesn't have a very strong flavor, and
it's very cheap, as well. So it can be sold to anyone, any market, and
there is a big market in the U.S., In Europe, and even in Australia we got also a big market
for Basa.
And those fish we can feel the bones. Right? The three bones one here, one there and one
there, very strong. So you can see from the fish, from the external
look of the fish you can see how it's grown, if it's grown in good conditions or if it's
grown in very high density. Here for example, we can see that the fins
are damaged.
So the fins are still there. You know, you can see some cases where it's
way worse but you can see that the fins are damaged. You see normally, it's supposed to be one
big fin, one nice fin, but here you can see that the rays are broken so the fish are not
grown in the best conditions even if it's probably one of the best farms I have visited
in Asia. You can see that the fish are still raised
in very high density and they damage each other.
So Basa is a fish that can be raised in high
density in very poor water quality. Here the water looks pretty good, but anyway
in aquaponics, we always try to maintain a low density of fish to keep the fish in the
best conditions and to avoid any stress. And if you avoid all the stress on the fish,
you're going to avoid all the diseases. So you don't have any disease on your fish.
You don't have any problem, and that's very
easy to grow your fish. Lady: This is about 1 kilo. Jonathan: 1 kilo. So all the fish are approximately this size
here.
Right? Lady: Average size. Jonathan: Average size. Lady: Yeah. Average size is about 800.
Jonathan: 800? Lady: 800 grams. Jonathan: Ah yes, I understand now. 800 Grams. Yes.
So now we're going to go and feed the fish. So you can see that to go and feed the fish,
we use some nice rafts and those rafts are going around the rope so it allows us to go
all around the pond. So we go from one way to another and we make
sure to feed the fish during the journey. So in this way, we are sure to throw the food
everywhere around the pond.
So all the fish have access to the fish food. That's very important actually in aquaponics
and in aquaculture. You want to make sure that all the fish have
the same chance to have access to the fish food and they can eat as much food as they
want or as they need. And the reason why that if you throw the food
only from the shore you're going to have all the big fish that are going to come and the
small fish are not going to have access to the food because they're going to be pushed
away.
You can see the quantity of fish that there
is in this pond. It's just crazy. Can you imagine 700 tons of fish in one pond? That's huge. So if you put all the food at one point, you're
going to have a big concentration of all the big fish that are going to fight to have access
to your food, and the small ones are not going to be able to reach it.
So here you can really see we spread the food
everywhere so all the fish they just have to swim to the surface, and they can directly
eat. So we do it twice a day or in this fish farm
they feed twice a day. I used to work in other fish farms where we
used to feed three times or four times a day, but here they do it only twice a day. At this time of the year, at this specific
temperature, they throw 10 tons of fish food for 700 tons of fish which means they are
feeding at 1.4%.
Here, they are fishing the pond and the fish
is into those nets. They will bring the net forward towards this
place here and all the fish are going to be here. Theyre are going to be able to catch it,
put it into the yellow bucket, and then some workers are going to bring it into this boat. And in that boat there are some little tanks,
I mean big tanks, actually.
And this boat can hold 25 tons of fish. So basically, the whole pond is going to come
into this boat here and then the boat is going to go to the factory where the fish are going
to be processed. How many workers are working for this farm? Lady: Its about 15. Jonathan: 15? Lady: 15.
Jonathan: Okay. So here in the factory, they are slaughtering
the fish so they simply put the fish straightaway into cold water. So you see there is a bit of ice in the water
so the water temperature is very low. And as you know, the fish metabolism -- the
fish activity is completely dependent on the water temperature.
So when you put the fish into this water,
into this cold water, the fish are going to slowly decrease their metabolic activity and
they're going to die. And that's supposed to be a very human way
to kill the fish, but also, it preserves the quality of the flesh because there are no
bacteria that can grow at this temperature. So the flesh of the fish is remaining very,
very good. So the farm we just visited was a farm made
of pond dug into the soil into the ground but here we can see on the way back, I could
see on the top of the Mekong River some floating cages farms.
So here they grow the Basa into the Mekong
River, thanks to some cages. That's exactly the same system as we saw when
we went to Cambodia, and we got a video about it on YouTube. I hope you enjoyed the video and it was interesting
for you to see how the Basa was produced and processed. Don't forget to give a like to the video,
to share the video with your friends, and to subscribe to the channel.
Finally, we got a bonus in this video. We got the six-step guide to help you to build
and to manage your aquaponics setup in the best conditions. So don't forget to get it from the description
of this video. See you in the next one.
Bye-bye. Thank you for watching the video. I really hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to get your free gift from this
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you a fantastic success with aquaponics. Have a good crop!.
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