Credit: Mohamed El Gazzar (Egypt)
This project is is located in Mullak Valley, Ismaelia, Egypt. This integrated project has two main components; fish and horticulture. The total acreage of the project is 8 hectares.
Fish production component includes four 250-m3 tanks of 130 cm water depth. One of which, is allocated for the production of Nile tilapia fingerlings of 25-g average size while the three remaining tanks are allocated for grow-out. The target average harvestable size is 350 g after 7-8 months. Fish tanks are aerated using paddle aerators. The rate of water renewal is based on the requirements of agricultural crops. Fish unit has the structure that provides its coverage by plastic sheets during winter months and hence allows regular growth during cold weather.
The project is served by three sedimentation tanks which receive the surface water from the supply canal and provide enough retention time before passing water to fish tanks as well as to agriculture. Each of the four tilapia tanks (fingerlings and grow-out) is served by one of the four biological filters. The media used for bio-filtration is locally available plastic materials which provide large surface areas as required for the bio-filtration. Biological filter tanks are aerated using fountain type aerators.
The project is also equipped with a mechanical filter unit which has a capacity to trap up to 100 micron particles and allows a water flow of 120 m3/hour. The mechanical filtration serves the fish component as well as the agriculture component to avoid the clogging of nozzles in water supply system.
The estimated target production is 50 kg/m3/production cycle. As the project has been planned to support 1.5 production cycle/year, the total market size fish produced is 54 tons/year.
The agriculture component which covers the rest of the 8 hectares are used for guava and mango production bearing in mind that Ismaelia is the principal mango producer in Egypt.
If you are interested to see the construction phases as well as some of the project equipment (e.g. mechanical filter), you are advised to visit the sister website of this channel: www.fishconsult.org
