Fresh Water Banami Shrimp Farming Flop

Fresh Water Banami Shrimp Farming

My first venture in farming a freshwater shrimps

drawn using GIMP

Not all investments will be a success, most will be a big Flop after spending time and resources, what is left is Experience. You learn, a lot. And there will be emotional obstacles you have to deal with.

I have hit a road block on this investment, but I will still tell you some details, maybe you could try and find your success on it.

If you have a good location on your pond, a small mixture of salt water because, river water near the sea flood it during rainy season which is pretty normal in the Philippines, you have a good chance of cultivating shrimps and prawns. Shrimp and Prawns can give you good income, its always in demand and will thrive on with little saltwater mixture(brackish). But if your pond location is fresh water like ours, then you have little luck.

Supposedly a variety of shrimp called "Banami Shrimp" can survive on freshwater, our neighbor's pond has able to culture it, without putting sacks of salt on the pond, putting salt on the pond would increase your expenditures, the banami shrimps larvae will survive through a "climatization" process as according to them, he has his share of imperfection like survival fall short and harvest in few kilos because the climatization process was made hastily, but it did survive, he was able to sell some for us a few kilos of his harvest, it was dark gray and taste like.... shrimp.

Banami shrimp is a good compliment to freshwater ponds combined with Tilapia fingerlings, because the shrimp will eat water polluting Tilapia's waste and Tilapia Feeds leftovers, both the Tilapia and Banami larvae must still be small, so they will grow together and prevent the Tilapia from eating the tiny Banami shrimp larvae.

First you have to ready your pond like how you would do with Tilapia, there is a good site out there like EntrePinoys Atbp. that you can get tips on, but each pond has different characteristics.

Hatchery Location

After that you can check out this map where I got my Banami larvae  Its a hatchery in San Felipe Zambales, If this is your first time, your pond must be ready, so in case you went there because its a little far off place, and the larvae is available, then you can purchase some right away and go straight to your pond, because if you do not have contact numbers as of yet to just call them if banami larvae is available, you really need to go there to know, and its better that your pond is ready in case you can purchase larvae right away so you can start than if your pond is not you will go back there and waste fuel again.

View Larger Map

This is a digital map provided, incase you came from NCR or nearby provinces you can navigate your way going to the shrimp hatchery. Coming from Olongapo traversing the National Highway, before you reach San Felipe boundary, there will be a bridge called Maculcul bridge, after that you will pass a cemetery then not far from that, on the left side there is a Sitio LiwLiwa Signboard which you turn left on that road. As shown on the map, this street is full of hatcheries of prawns and shrimp of different varieties.

In the hatchery, there is a minimum numbers of banami shrimp larvae you can get, in my case the minimum is 100,000 banami shrimp larvae and cost P0.12** centavos each (as of 2011), so its P12,000 total, you can count the larvae if you want... you can try, the counting method is they put it in oxygen and water filled plastic bags, then they get one bag and count the larvae one by one, you can watch them if you want, in my case, one bag is counted as 5,000+ fries, then automatically the number applies to the rest of the bag which is 20 bags all, of course they give you extra bonus bags for assurance in case some bags will be less 5,000+ and the fatality rate during travel. The banami shrimp larvae is very small like dots swimming in the water.

** prices are subjected to change without prior notice

Once you got the larvae in the bag, you should go to your pond as soon as possible, don't waste your time stopping by a Mall or something because the more they stay on the bag the oxygen level decreases for several hours before they start to get weak and die. But I'm sure its enough time for you to go to your pond before that happens.

Climatization Process

So basically this shrimp really need a very small mixture of salt water but by a climatization process, they will able to survive in fresh water. How? first you pour one bag in a container along with the water and larvae in there, and go near your the pond, pour 1 glass of pond water to the container, wait for a few minutes then remove 2 glasses of water from the container, make sure no larvae gets along with it, then pour another 3 glasses of pond water to the container, wait for a few minutes, then remove 4 glasses of water from the container, and repeat the process and apply also on the other bags, any way if its time consuming then go figure out another way, if you did, then good for you, the important thing is the concept of slowly letting them adapt to your local freshwater pond from the brackish water they came along the bag/hatchery.

Epic Failure

After a few weeks, you will be able to know if the shrimp survives, during night time, you will flash a flash light in the pond and to the pond's corner, you will see their eyes glow. But in our case, there was none. Evidently something went wrong in the early stages.

After a few months, when the Tilapia where harvested, no Shrimps was in sight. Its a failure! a Flop!. What happened? I don't know. Possibly, they failed to adapt in freshwater so they disintegrated after the climatization process, or they where eaten by Tilapia, since the Tilapia where a little larger than they are suppose to be when the shirmp was placed on the pond because of timing issues, you have to time the right timing to get the Tilapia fingerlings and the Shrimp larvae. Even though my neighbor say the Tilapia wont eat them, I have doubts in my mind, since a small Tilapia would eat a small ant if you throw one on there because I tried it to simulate a shrimp larvae...... just nearly had a panic attack just typing this paragraph, I think reminiscing on what happen that time left me an emotional scar or something even though it happened few years ago already, Oh well, I just need to relax for a little bit. How about you, maybe you may get your success on Shrimp culture.

Juan Tamad Sayings:

Like what is said earlier, not all investments will succeed, there will be failures ahead and emotional pains can scar you and beat you up, just think of it as you are going to school, you pay money to learn, same as failures in the business, after you spend lots of money, it just fails, but you learn, you pay for experience, it fails, now you know and try something new. How about not quitting you say? Well I am not totally quitting the shrimp thing, I must perfect my Tilipia culture first then maybe a few decades I will start the shrimps again, but as of now, I will look for a different passive income avenue to cover the losses, this thing will go to "Experiments" and probably try a small batch of shrimps first or wait my neighbor farm to perfect his freshwater shrimp culture, as of now, there is little source of information about freshwater Banami shrimp even on the internet, this niche product will make it more attractive but of course risky also.

There is another thinking that I shouldn't force it, for farmers who has naturally small salt mixture in their ponds can grow the shrimp or prawns easily, but there are this things that grow better on fresh water also which I am still experimenting that I should focus on.