How to Start Fish Farming in Nigeria Beginners Guide (Plan & Cost)

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How to Start Fish Farming in Nigeria? Here is a complete beginners guide that reveals the plan and cost analysis to start fish farming in Nigeria successfully.

How to Start Fish Farming in Nigeria Beginners Guide (Plan & Cost)

Fish farming in Nigeria has tend to be a great opportunity recently and you also can go for large scale commercial production. Here we are discussing more about commercial catfish production in Nigeria.

There are so many information on the internet on how to start fish farming in Nigeria especially catfish farming but few are detailed enough to really assist aspiring fish farmer to get started. I will be endeavor to make this article as detailed as possible and hope that other experienced fish farmer will add to it as we try to answer people’s questions by commenting.

A lot of people, especially those who have an interest in agricultural related businesses, don’t know the potentials of catfish farming in Nigeria. That is exactly why we’ll be discussing how to start the profitable business of Catfish Farming in Nigeria, and the hidden opportunities therein.

Fish farming in Nigeria is a lucrative business which requires time, patience and money. Why fish farmers fail in Nigeria is because of the believe that fish farming requires little investment which results in huge profits. Fish farming is very technical, risky, capital-intensive, needs adequate knowledge and attention. But when compared to other reared animals like poultry, they are still a better choice because their mortality rate is less.

Before starting you need to go for training from an experience fish farm in other to know the intrigues of the business. And you have to start small until you have become a successful fish farmer before expanding.

If you are thinking of business to start now, I recommend you start Catfish Farming. If you are an existing farmer and you are looking to expand your farm capacity, I’d encourage you add fish farming to your line of business. Fish farming (especially catfish) is most compatible with poultry farming as you can use the poultry drops to produce the feed for your fish.

Fish Farming in Nigeria Overview (Catfish).

Before we proceed, you would agree that catfish is one of the commonly eaten fishes in homes, hotels, bars, joints, relaxation spots, and so on. When the word “point and kill” flashes by your ears, don’t squeeze your face wondering what it means. At joints, you could walk up to the fish bowl and point to a live (fresh) catfish you want killed and either used for Pepper-soup or just grilled and peppered.

There are Catfish millionaires in Nigeria, and about one-third of them didn’t really make deep research. The only fact they held on to, is that Catfish business can make one rich; and they went ahead, got a boat with a 100 Ah deep cycle battery, gave it their all, and now, their fish farming business is super-thriving.

But it gives you, as a Catfish farming enthusiast, an extra edge over the ‘trial-runners’ to have some sort of ‘The Beginners’ Guide’ in the palm of your hands, which you can follow and check back on the instructions, or make some personnel extra extensive research on how to go about your business.

The common aim of every business person is taking their business to a higher level than surrounding competition, and that’s what this summarized guide aims to help you with. Let’s quickly disclose to you, what you need to know to start a Catfish business in Nigeria.

Benefits of Fish Farming in Nigeria.

1. Fish is Popular

Fishery products is by far the most popular animal products in the market, constituting more than 60% of meat produce in the Nigerian market.

2. Fish is Source of Protein

Fish is one of the highest source of protein. It is a low-fat high quality protein that is filled with omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins such as D and B2 (riboflavin). Fish is also very rich in calcium and phosphorus and is equally a great source of minerals, such as iron, zinc, iodine, magnesium, and potassium.

3. Fish Sells Quick

Fish sells faster than any other animal products in the market and is relatively cheaper than meats, making it the number one choice when it comes to affordability.

4. Fish Matures Quickly

Fish grows very fast as practices in fish farming makes it possible for farmers to increase the fastness of their fish growth by giving them certain feeds, ensuring that you harvest and sell within short period of time.

5. Fish Contains Omega-3

Fish is the biggest source of Omega-3 fatty acids which is extremely beneficial to human heart; Omega-3 helps to keep our heart and brain very healthy. Since human body doesn’t produce Omega-3 fatty acids, the only source through which we can get it is by what we eat, that is where fish comes to the rescue.

6. Fish Farming is Profitable

Fish farming is very profitable. With proper planning and good management, N3 million investment in fish farming could easily result to N4 million of pure profit within six months.

7. No Environmental Hazard

Fish farm does not cause any environmental hazard. Unlike poultry farming, you can setup fish farm anywhere, including residential areas. If you have a specious compound, you can easily setup a small fish farm within your backyard without any regulatory precaution.

Some important questions to ask before you Start Fish farming business in Nigeria are:

How much capital can I afford to start the business? (Capital would determine your starting scale – Small Scale or Large Scale.)
How many Catfish farmers are in my vicinity? (Knowing this would inevitably help you attach yourself for practical training, if you want, and would also help you determine the competition in your farm area.)
What is the demand for Catfish in my area? (Demand is not equal everywhere.)
Can I have the time to oversee the farm or do I need to employ a fish farmer? (You need to know for proper budgeting.)
What is Catfish farming’s ROI (Return on Investment.)

Fish Species.

There are numerous species of catfish around the world. All of those species are not suitable for farming according to the weather and climate of Nigeria. A few of those can be used for commercial fish farming in Nigeria. Clarias gariepinus, Heterobranchus bidorsalis, Heterobranchus hybrid (Heteroclarias), Clarias nigrodigitatus, Heterobranchus spp, Clarias spp etc. are common and most popular catfish species for commercial fish farming in Nigeria.

Risks and Challenges in Fish Farming

1. Sensitive to Manage

Fish is very sensitive to manage and a slight mistake could result to degenerated growth of your fish or even death which may cause massive revenue loss.

2. Capital Intensive

Setting up fish farm is capital intensive, much more than that of poultry and snail farming. Setting up fish farm requires more careful planning and much capital input. A relatively small fish farm may take up to N500,000 to setup, while bigger ones takes millions of naira.

3. Fish is Priced High

Due to the cost of production, fish produced from the farm is priced higher than those caught from the rivers and ponds by fishermen. Therefore, if there are good quantity of fisherman’s fish in the market, you may find it difficult to sell as people would prefer the cheaper ones.

4. No Byproduct

There is no byproduct in fishery unlike poultry where even the drop can be harvested and sold to other farmers and make extra profit. In fishery, all you get is the flesh.

Types Of Fish You Can Farm

Haven seen the benefits as well as the risks involved in fish farming, let’s now proceed to decide which specie of fish we want to farm. Below are some of the most popular fish species that is suitable for Aquaculture.

1. Cat Fish –

Even though Catfish is not the most popular fish in Nigeria, this fish species is by far the most cultivated in Nigeria. One thing good about catfish is that it is one of the easiest fish species to cultivate. So, people naturally flow to the direction of fish specie they found to be the easiest to cultivate.

2. Tilapia –

Second most popular fish in Nigeria’s aquaculture industry, Tilapia is a fish species that lives in fresh shallow water. Tilapia is very easy to cultivate and very popular in Nigerian market, it reproduces very rapidly and grows fast too.

3. Mackerel (Titus) –

This is by far the most popular fish in Nigerian market but so sad it’s not farmed. All Mackerel Fish are “wild caught” but some farmer in Nigeria are considering the possibility of creating artificial salty water that will be similar to sea water where mackerel can only survive. Can this deep blue sea fish specie be cultivated artificially? Only time will tell but for now, you have to focus your attention to Catfish and Tilapia.

What You Need To Get Started In Fish Farming

1. Secure a Land

Any location is good since fish doesn’t cause any environmental disturbance. Look for land where you can get it cheap and buy. Depending on the capacity you wants to operate on, half plot of land is just good enough for average fish farm.

However, you may go for something bigger like full plot or two if you can afford it probably for convenience sake. If you already have a compound with leftover space you thing can accommodate two or three ponds, you may use it.

2. Construct Ponds

You need to engage the service of expert pond construction engineer or you go to another fish farm to get the specification and construction requirements. The plumbing work must be properly done to ensure proper drainage.

3. Dig a Borehole

Adequate water supply is the lifeblood of fish farm and lack of it may result to disaster because water need to be changed on regular interval. Naturally available sources of water such as borehole and river water is the most suitable. Rain water and tap water from chemically treated source is not recommended for fish cultivation.

4. Install Overhead Tank

This is the water reservoir from which water is supplied to your ponds. This tank has to be connected to your ponds through plumbing system to make it convenient for water to flow into your ponds when needed.

5. Get Juvenile Fish

Get your juvenile from another farm that specializes in supplying it. You need to go for the high yield specie of catfish or tilapia and make sure you are getting it from a healthy farm.

6. Get Training

Not the kind of training you get from one day seminars; you need to get attached to a fish farm for proper apprenticeship. For you to properly learn this trade, you need at least two months training on this.

Remember that your investment is at stake, trial and error is not good in business except you have unlimited funds to experiment with.

Catfish Farming in Nigeria: Feasibility Study

The feasibility study included in this guide is for a farm capacity of 10,000 fingerlings and for a farm that is just starting. The Capital covers from pond construction (which is the common concrete type), fish feeding, production, to marketing. The farm has 10 ponds to contain 1,000 fingerlings cum Catfish each.

To construct one concrete fish pond measuring 3m X 2.5m X 1.4m (l/w/h). The materials and prices below are rough estimates of materials.

Blocks (N120,000), Sand (N28,000), Cement (N130,000), Gravel (N64,000) General Farm treatment (N50,000), Water supply (N58,000), Misc (N100,000) Fingerlings (1 is N30, so N30 X 10,000 = N300,000), Cost of feeding from day one to full maturity stage (N1,000,000), Workmanship (N150,000).

Total: N2,000,000

Note: The more the quantity you purchase, the better since you can get every one of the fishes out alive when they’re ready to be sold. In this case, 300 fishes died and the rest were sold at N800 each. The selling price also depends on location.

N800 X 9700 = N7,660,000

After six months of tendering and rearing, the gain was a whooping N5,760,000 after six months, which isn’t bad at all. The number one money consuming factor is the fish feeds, as you can see from the feasibility study.

The more the investment, the more you can expect as ROI.

Catfish Farming in Nigeria: Risks Involved

Managing a fish farm is relatively more difficult than a goat or snail farm or even poultry.
Losses resulting from mistakes or management slips is always more fatal in fish farms than in any other case.
Fish from fish farms are always priced higher than freshly caught fishes. So you might find it more difficult selling your fishes if there are many fishermen in your market.
Setting up a fish farm is very capital intensive. Much more than most other animals.

Catfish Farming in Nigeria: Advantages

Fish sells faster than most other animal products in the market.
Fish grows faster than most other animals; hence, the period of the ROI is shorter.
Fishes are bought in bulk also by people making health and beauty products.
There’s a very steady demand for fishes in the market.
The ROI from fish farming is very attractive and is enough compensation for your time and money.

The key things you need to know in fish farming is

How to hatch (spawning)
How to manage pond
Feed formulation

Fishes that are mostly domesticated in Nigeria are; Mackerel, Catfish and tilapia. Of the three catfish is the most reared fish in our environment.

PURCHASE FISH FROM A GOOD FARM

Buy fish from reputable farms if not you will be given runts which cannot attain reasonable heights. It should be a farm where the female and the male are equal or above 1.5kg Here is how to identify runts; the heads appears whitish in colour and their body very thin. thinner in such a way that it cannot be matched with the head.

Before stocking fishes in the pond disinfect it with Blagdon against anti-fungi and bacteria present in the pond. There are people who stock without testing the pond only for the fishes to start decaying due to outbreak of diseases present in the pond.

REQUIREMENT FOR FISH FARMING

1. LOCATION

You have to choose a suitable place that will be used in the construction of the fish pond. One of such place is a swampy environment, it is very good in rearing fish. Do not use thick bush or where trees are many especially when you are using earthen pond. Build bore hole or pond if you are using concrete pond. You can purchase water and give shade to the fishes or fingerlings. Prevent direct sunlight to your farm.

2. OVERALL COST

i. COST OF LABOUR/MAN POWER

It should be moderate but can be both expensive or cheap. This will be due to location and the type of pond. Concrete pond will require much labour. However, you can look for a way to cut the cost down.

Concrete and tarpaulin ponds consumes more money than earth ponds. This is mainly due to the need of changing water more frequently.

Other things are fixed cost which includes: construction (pond) pumping machine, basin, dragnet etc.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING EARTHEN POND

Pest such as snakes and other reptiles can feed on the fish.
Sorting becomes an impossible development
The state of the fish cannot be properly monitored because the fishes cannot be sighted.
Overstocking can easily result
The advantage is that it is cheap
And the fishes would feel they are in their natural habitat.

ii. COST OF MATERIALS

This will depend on the time, type of pond and the number of fingerlings you are managing. You have to calculate the number of blocks, cement etc. That you are likely to use in case of concrete pond. You have to constantly change water so you need light (electricity diesel) to pump the generator.

List of all the equipments needed to run a fish farm successfully depends mostly on the stock capacity. But some of the things needed are. well/bore hole, oxygen meter, feed store, harvest net, sorting bowls.

COST OF FEEDING THE FISHES

Foreign feeds are more expensive than local feeds example is the cupen feeds. But you can produce your own feeds locally while maintaining high level of protein in the feed. This way you would have reduced the cost of purchasing and feeding the fishes.

FEEDING

Start the fishes with foreign feeds in the first 4 or 6 weeks after that start using local feed. Although some people feed fishes (with floating food of good quality) for 12 weeks before the locally pelleted feeds . This helps them to gain weight, example of feed to use is Durantee or Coppen.

Feed them 3 times a day but from the third month you start feeding them twice and once in the last month. If you don’t feed your fishes regularly, they will not grow. give them the correct size of food at the right time.

Some of the feeds are;

coppens, durante, multifeed, zeigler, aqua feed, ranan, vital feed, top feed etc. No one can accurately predict the amount of money to be spent in feeding fishes’. Your initial capital cannot be considered as investment because 60% goes into fixed capital.

FACTORS THAT MAY AFFECT FISH FEEDING

Different factors affect or contributes to the response of fish feeding at a given time. Such factors include:

Water quality (turbidity, ph, temperature etc.),
Stress
Health

SPACING

Fishes need enough space. Profit does not depend on the number of fishes you stock alone. It will even be better to understock them instead of overstocking them. To know if you have overstock fishes is when their water starts smelling within 3 days of changing it.

The solution to this is to change their water daily which will be more costly and time-consuming. Another way is to reduce the stock, fish likes fresh water. It helps them swim well and also eat better which will in turn result in healthy and bigger fishes.

SORTING

Bigger fishes always suppress the smaller ones because of their size and weight. This makes it difficult for the small fishes to feed when food is served. In other for them not to die or be stunted, separate them by putting the smaller fishes in different pond. Sort them into different sizes; big, medium and small after two weeks of stocking.

Don’t give the fishes food before sorting and after sorting else the vomit the feed; due to the stress the underwent.

MARKETING

Sell to market men and women, frozen food dealers, hotels, restaurants, bars, joints, individuals etc. The price of fish will depend on the size of the fish. A big fish will attract more money than the small size.

Marketability of fishes depends largely on the market forces such as demand and supply. Most people generally prefer big fishes. To attract good customers always cultivate big fishes.

Before starting fish farming look out for your potential buyers first and the sizes the prefer. You can raise a fish to 1kg in 5 months.

The best way to make money through fish farming is by smoking them for export. This way 70% profit on your investment is guaranteed.

There are different of young fishes to stock such as; fingerlings, juvenile and post juvenile. It will be advisable as a starter you start with juvenile because you may not have the facilities to handle fingerlings. juveniles cost between #20-#30 for one.

HOW MUCH IS DOES A KG OF FISH COST?

The prices of fish varies from place to place for instance 1kg can cost #500-#600 in one place while selling less or more in another place.

All the fish reared may not survived and they cannot attain uniform weight hence their prices is bound to vary.

NOTE

Success in fish farming depends on;
1. The quality of the fish
2. The quality of the feeds
3. The quality of the water system used
4. The structure of the pond system (space/depth)
5. infection fish will be eating without growing. Always observe your fishes whenever you change their water to identify any infection. If most of the fishes turn whitish then know there is an infection. Immediately use anti-biotic..

HOW TO TREAT A NEW POND

Pour 4 bags of poultry manure into the pond to neutralize the acidity of the cement and also to add Spirogyra to the water. Leave it for about a month before washing them out and restocking fresh water.

HOW MUCH IS REQUIRED TO SET UP A FISH POND?

A plot of land can take 3 ponds, stocked with 3000 fishes in each pond totalling 9000. you can start a medium fish farm with #200,000, small farm with #80,000 while large farm is from one million.

You can also construct a 60sqm pond of 5ft deep for 100k. 2000litres size can take 250-350 fishes from fingerlings to table size.

The two most important things in fish farming are quality water and feeds. The things that can pollute water are; urine, faeces, and dissolved excess food. At 4 month a fish should be able to attain an average of 1kg in size. It is better to start on a small scale, learn the trade from ground and then expand to a bigger capacity you can handle.

MY EXPERIENCE IN FISH FARMING IN NIGERIA

Me and one of my colleague rented an earthen pond at Jabi lake in Abuja very close to my office then. After stocking 1000 fishes in less than a month flood came and wash away the whole fishes. That day fishermen in that community harvested huge catch.

It was so devastating for us but that’s not were the story ends. One of the fish farmers who has been raising his fishes and was about selling them in two weeks time the flood wash them off as well, 3000 fishes.

I decided to move ahead and reared them close to my friend’s place, Because of the nature of work my friend couldn’t feed them well as a result the fishes runt we had to sell them off at a lost.

With this I mean to say if you cannot devout enough time for the fishes, please do not go ahead to start fish farming. Also if your fish farm is close to a water body example river; build a protection for it just in case

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