i was in the fish business just a few years ago. Before your fish can even grow big enough to sell you need to invest at least 400k bare minimum.

After that you still need to find customers to buy your fish. not easy

Invested in aquaculture twice. Once in Australia to farm and process salmons and another is the infamous tilapia using HDPE.

Both turned out to be a bigger disaster.

I'll skip the details on the salmon project as its a very long story.

The tilapia project, all I can say is you MUST know what the heck you're doing. The simple answer you are looking for is most likely whether does it make money. Then the simple answer to it is yes it can make money but no where near as much as those who pushes the idea tells you. If you have to pay rent for the land then you will be making as little as RM.50 per fish if you sell to middleman. Also if I'm not mistaken now in order to be a licensed breeder and farm you do need to first go for one of the few government approved courses.

Issues to consider? Do you own the land? Can you easily get permits to operate such an operation else you can expect to pay plenty of donations to the police and local councils.

Your next hurdle, can you get power to that land, if no then you will have to be a registered business operating from that piece of land else you won't be able to buy fuel for your generators, not easily at least and you can definitely expect some hefty fines if you are caught buying fuel in containers. Oh yes the electric usage is high, the 4 acre setup I used that ran purely on diesel generators used around RM7,000 worth of diesel each month until we had issues with KPDNKK that refused to renew our permission to purchase fuel from petrol stations.

Then assuming you have power and land sorted out your next hurdle will be where you are planning to get water. This will make or break your business. River water? You run the risk of bacteria and your products will have that bad soil taste. SYABAS? Well you have to PAY. Best? Rain water harvesting but you must treat it if your area if prone to acid rain. Then there is the issue of discharging the water. No proper discharge system? Can be done but do expect to pay donations to JAS.

Oh yeah when it comes to enforcement do expect plenty of "RnR' if you don't hold the same "kulitficatiion" as the enforcer......pandai pandai on this.

Now that you've set it up, how are you going to manage it?

You will need at least 6 workers per acre minimum. Also reared 12 dogs as well who will be your best of friends. Easier to find good dogs than good workers. When it comes to this, best ones are the Nepalese and Burmese, the rest requires a lot of supervision. The worst?? Malay, Indonesian and Orang Asli.

There are 2 types of Tilapias, Red and Black. Black ones mainly for processing and export. Cost much more to produce as it requires 4kg of feed in its lifetime assuming 900g net weight. Red tilapia cheaper to produce but plenty of people producing.

Bacteria and diseases are big issues with these farms. Hence good practices include plenty of quarantine and batching, not just of the fry but also of the water especially if you are using river water.

Feed makes all the difference, good ones with high protein content don't come cheap these days.

Finally, who are you planning to sell to and who will do the selling? Easiest? Middleman take all but expect to earn very little. Selling on your own? Possible as well but RnR is a big issue when it comes to this. You will need to be a darn good salesman for this as the market is very full with suppliers and very few are generally willing to change suppliers especially if it is for live ones.

Why I exited it? My 2 partners wanted to diversify and I preferred remaining as just the landlord. Which brings up another point, most of these farms can no longer survive just by being a fish farm, many are diversifying into other products chief among which are Udang Galah, Keli, Patin and some are also breeding the fry as well as some are breeding it to be processed into fishmeal. Some are also using the discharge water to plant vegetables hydroponically and some are using the water as well as sludge for banana and various fruit plantations. One I know even does a homestay and another operates it as part of a tahfiz.

No. I’m not. The most maybe just above average. Agriculture is not good in money making. You need diversified your investment. Like my family case, we have rubber estate and palm oil plantation, not big around 20 acres in total. Inside the same land we have fish farm and bird nest. Last time bird nest can make a lot but now no more. It is very time consuming, that’s why we hire an estate manager to take care of it. He will looks for buyer and find workers for us.