Elmer :

if you dont mind i would like to post my answer here also to your PM

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RAS initial costing is too high for small time players because you dont get Economies of Scale.

unless you have RM 10-20 million sitting in your bank then its worth your time and effort.

actually RAS gives you control of labour because it requires less labour to operate the system.

well there are a few tilapia farmers in Hulu Langat, Semenyih & Broga that are quite big. but they are NOT RAS

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if you are doing pond culture then your initial cost wouldn't be that high BUT you have to be very very careful with labour force as i know a few people who "manufacture" culvert pipes & others in KL/Selangor had closed down due to our Govt's Pemutihan Exercise

another thing i didnt read or maybe i missed, Where is this 8 acre of land ???

and seriously depending on your take-over price can you ROI in 1-2 years ?

Hi prophetjul,

thanks for writing.

hadnt been in Fish Farming for like 5 years now.

If you have a place like 200 acres then you can "divide" into smaller cachement and rear non stop and thus giving you output everymonth or even every 2 weeks.

Capital is subjective. And there is no figure i can put out. It actually depends on how much you are able to put forward for this venture then only work backwards.

RAS : is Recirculating Aquaculture System which is usually housed in tanks and alot of factors like weather and fish quality can be monitored and controlled.

If 200acres is entirely water size with depth 10ft and above, it's a huge lake.
Question to consider, how well you know the lake, what's in it? It can make a difference.
How about the security etc?

Having access to large funding, wonders can be done.
Despite that, you would want to avoid as much mistakes and time wastage.

There are numerous downstream activities that can be done with Tilapia.
But I believe, one step at a time is better approach as you can stabilize yourself with experience learnt before moving downstreams.onl
Yet again, with $$, you can short cut and hire the expert know how people to do the work.
I myself prefer to hands on everything, will only leave it to managers once the ship had been steadied.

I myself is in the Aqua Feed business, where my department mainly handling Tilapia Feed business.
I'm also in the Tilapia farming, small farm with 2 ponds. I also secure my clients would be able to sell their fish when harvest.

My feed cost in my farm is about RM3.50 - RM4.50 per kg of fish depending of what I am doing with it. Market ex-farm price vary from RM8-RM10 per kg. Fluctuations depends on demand and supply.
Feed cost would be your largest operating cost. How efficiently you balance cost vs benefit is the key. How efficiently you convert your FCR. We usually aim to have lower FCR to be more profitable. Yet, on another hand, lower FCR with better margin may not neccessary means more profits.
As for other operating cost, it entirely depend on yourself.

Lastly, most important is the market and your location.
Certain location does not command a good price.

You could employ experts if you have $$ muscle, but a real expert cost a bomb. Domestic experts is rare commodity.

China is world largest Tilapia exporter with ex-farm price at RMB8 = RM4! true that their quality is doubtful but their price is extreme low.
Shall you like to fetch good export EU Price or Middle east price, you need to spend a lot to get certification from them. Having said that, the price you fetch only slightly higher than domestic. Therefore supply domestic is far better if you have ways.

As far as I know in Perak, their ex-farm price atm is slightly lower than those in Selangor.

Fries - although there isn't that high number of hatchery. I do believe atm certain fries are at oversupply which push down the prices, except for some species, but those are the imported ones where we call completely neutered.
Packing - Margin is low unless you found targeted market.
Feedmill - Getting the right nutritionist is tough enough. Jalan to get quality and rare raw materials is very tough (mainly secretive), plus countless of additives out there in the market. So to use which and at what composition to efficiently to better the FCR of the feed is a true challenge. It look like rocket science to me in the beginning. Till now, my business partner take care of it while I work on marketing.

There are numerous calculated and uncalculated risks. I do advise start small, however the same successful way of managing 1 pond is not the same with doing it on 10 ponds with same practice.

Fish poo may seems the big problem to some, but it's rather easy to overcome. You just can never overcome nature.
In huge lake, I believe the ecosystem itself may be helpful to you.

I had considerable success with approximately 3-4 fish/m cube of water with conservative approach. I'm testing at much higher number, even if that so, that will only be estimation. Some may say I'm too conservative. But in practice, you just can't be greedy in aquaculture. Try it out, then you'll find out by yourself.

In fish, our plural is much. It's not like in cows or pigs, where you can really talk about "daily gain". Nature can help or destroy you.

Despite saying that, our country is consider cheap enough utilizing land and nature water, rather than going for RAS system etc. Look, it's Tilapia, not grouper. Don't have to make things complicated.