Fish and Relax

I mentioned a few posts ago that the owner of this golf course/estate is involved with raising exotic fish. The ponds are dredged and netting is put down to keep the fish contained. Each pond is twenty feet deep. The fish are bred, raised and sold from the ponds. Distributors come with huge aqua trucks to transport the fish to stores throughout Southeast Asia. The larger fish, like the ones in Ponsak's fish pool cost 10,000 baht or 300 dollars. He has six fish that size and they eat thirty pounds of fish food per week. I remember in one of my animal husbandry classes we studied food conversion rates(FCR). It determines how much weight gain there is related to how much the animal eats. I discussed this with my Gifted students just this year. Cold-blooded animals use little energy to convert food to body mass so they are very efficient in gaining size very quickly. A one pound fish may gain as much as 500% in a one year period. Farm raised salmon and catfish are within that range. Here are a few pictures of the fish ponds and the fish in the pool. For my friends who know Ponsak, you can see from the pictures of his home that his business is doing quite well. He has come a long way since high school and college.