Farming Red Tilapia

Yes, We did started off by farming Soon Hock aka Marble Goby and there's been lots of inquiries on them. However, we do not farm Soon Hock in large scale anymore as they are too sensitive. In another words, we have failed to farm Soon Hock in large scale. Therefore we're only concentrating on Red Tilapia.

It's been 3 long years we've ventured into farming and we've come a long way. So much that we've picked up, some success and some failures.
However we're still standing very firm on practicing good aquaculture which doesn't involve chemical and farming the fishes in a proper(slow) pace. What we are eating in the market now, I am not just talking about fishes but most meat and especially chicken are being farm and sold before they are mature. What happens if the livestock is immature? You don't eat the real flavor of the meat and nutrients are insufficient due to their young age.

What are we facing by practicing good aquaculture? FINANCIAL CRISIS. haha nah... financial crisis sounds too serious but seriously, we don't profit so much because we took longer time and everything from electricity to labor are costly. Any businessman would say our business proposal is not profitable but we have a principal to keep.

We just hope, one day we could cut of the middleman and go direct to end user in order to sustain and make a healthy profit. Fingers crossed.

Cooking fish can be as easy as ABC

Cooking our fish can be as easy as ABC

We take orders for steam fish spices as well. We recommend using Lizar Spices for our fish.

Purchase our fish and choose the flavour of your likings. The flavour we have are:-

1. Ginger Steam paste (you may add some chinese parsley for garnishing)

2. Bean Sauce / Cheong Cheng Paste (you may add some tomato and chilli for additional flavour)

3. Asam Paste (Add some bunga kantan, tomato, lemon grass and laksa leaves for additional flavour)

4. Tomyam Paste

Steps to cook your fish to perfection:-

Step 1: Remove the sauce from the plastic pack and place them above your fish.

Step 2: Put water in the wok you intend to steam your fish in and make sure it is boiling before you place your fish in it.

Step 3: Steam until the meat of the fish start curving (Approx. 15 minutes depending on how big your fish is)

Voila. and it's ready to be served. Isn't it as easy as ABC?

Our fish texture

Steam Tilapia from one of our customer's restaurant. Curvy meat resembles springy texture of the fish.

Our Tilapia Farm

The farm@Semenyih consists of 8 ponds for Red Tilapia. Our farm uses water from the mountain.

High Grade Tilapia fries with constant flow of mountain water.

Our worker preparing food for the fish fries. The fishes are fed ONLY with high grade pellets.

Close up pictures of our healthy red tilapia

Feeding time...

The red talapia

We have come a long way. It's been such a long time since I last updated.

Since last year we have diverse our business to farming red talapia. When it was due to harvest last december, the price of red talapia has since dropped from RM10 per kg to RM7per kg (bear in mind this is ex-farm price). By early this year, the price went further down to RM6.20 perkg. And it stayed the same even when during chinese new year. It is really frustrating as there was no way we could be making any profit with that kind of price. The problem is that we have use our best techniques, feeding the best feed and yet we have to be selling our fishes to the middle man with them mixing our fish up with those eating thrash, chicken intestines and what not. It's very very frustrating. It's been a tough few months and nevertheless we had to let go off our first batch of red talapia at RM6.80 perkg.

Because of the unstable price of red talapia, we have decided to approach consumer and restaurants on our own. The project will commence early next month, which is June.

So here's some information about our red talapia:-

1) They are all fed by 100% fish pellets (No chicken intestines, therefore no unhealthy fats and definitely no thrash)

2) Constant changing of mountain water into the pond. (No mud smell for sure)

3) Chemical Free (We do not practice using any sorts of chemical on our fishes)

Do call me if you would like to purchase these fresh from farm red talapia.

Market problem. Not the fish

Been busy learning a lot and doing much of research to achieve the optimum techniques to farm these fishes up to it's best quality meat texture and flavor without the use of chemical. And we realize cheap fishes could be as good as the expensive ones we eat in the restaurants. I personally do not like freshwater fish too much and was disappointed many times eating them in restaurants. However, the perception has changed since we gave the best of food to my fishes and kept them clean. These fishes are actually much fresher and tastier than eating them in restaurants. Even cheap and always-under-valued fish like the big head carp is awesome. wecannot believe how smooth the texture of the big head carp is until we started farming them on my own. Definitely, not self praising our fishes and they are just awfully under-valued.

It breaks my heart knowing that in Malaysia we do not have standards on our fishes and probably also because some people wouldn't pay to eat fishes when they are the healthiest meat on earth. Fishes could be affordable and healthy to eat. It doesn't have to be expensive if there weren't greed among the middleman, restaurants and farmers.

Why are farmers dying? Many farmers closed down recently. Why? They couldn't sustain! Land is expensive and feeds are very very very expensive. I am not sure about live stocks but fish price are being controlled. Not by government. Not controlled as in it will stay the same or being valued by some NGOs when it should go up. It is being controlled by middleman. When there is too much fish in the market, price can go all the way down and when there's lack of supplies, it would go way up as well. And for us, farmers, when it goes way way way down, it goes down and stay there for a longest time ever. Food price generally will never go down when it goes to consumer. Whether consumer purchase fish in the morning market, super market or eat in restaurants, rarely would you see food price go down. But for us, farmers, it does and until the extend many of us couldn't survive.

These fish pellets/fish feeds price are constantly going up. In one year time, the price of a 20kg pellets can go up by RM3. It is a pretty high percentage in one year. It's heart wrenching if we were to call it quit. It took us a long way and time to reach here. If we, the young generation do not start farming, what will our next generation eat in the future?

I hope, we can go on, fight on to make farming a better career for mankind. We shall start figuring something new to break the in between people who are earning too much.

About the Ikan Keli we stopped breeding

Why we stopped breeding ikan keli or catfish?

Man... I really hate to complain about it but here's the truth.

The price of Keli has gone down. Down down down. There are people who offered me RM2.80 perkg. I am beyond shocked. How on earth that farmer make a living by selling them so cheap? I do not understand. If the market price of these fishes has been thrashed in such, why would we want to encourage people to farm these fishes then? It isn't right. I wouldn't farm them as well. Because of the devastating drop of keli price, some people have no other choice than to feed their kelis with cheaper alternative feed. I won't say what but definitely cheaper than fish pellets. It is impossible one can earn from feeding pellets to keli if the price is not above a certain amount. Definitely not RM3 or 4. That's why I have stopped breeding that fish that could bring no human kind anywhere.

Truth about Keli

Keli is actually a superb fish. I love keli. I love their character and I love the way they eat. Keli eats a lot basically. I still kept some 30 something of the keli I bred myself. I love them to the bits.

We do not change the keli tank water frequent like other fishes. Once a week maybe as most farmers say, keli never have to change water. It's true. These fishes are amazing. They can tolerate anything. Even eating whatever. I do not want to mention what can or would a keli eat but basically trust me, they eat ANYTHING. Anyway, our beloved 30 something keli eat fish pellet. Sometimes we feed them with some live fishes if there's extra from the pond. They lived well, grew really fat and they are adorable. So, one fine day, we decided to try my very own keli just so to know why is it under-valued. We took a 1.2kg keli up. Took it to the restaurant and ordered it to be cooked Kung pou style. They'd fillet the keli, slice it and deep fried the meat and then stir fried with dried chilli and cashew nuts.

To my very very surprise, it is beyond my expectation. The Keli is so smooth yet solid. It is no lumpy meat fish. It is seriously delicious. I wish I had taken a picture of it but I was too busy eating the fish. It's really good shit. I'd pay RM30 to eat my keli for sure.

I don't know if it's the much of love I've poured into my fishes or is it just the method that makes our own Keli taste fantastic but it does.

It is heart wrenching while eating this very nice fish while thinking this is the fish which is not being appreciated at all...