Video credit: Fares Fares Arab (Egypt) and Marx Perfecto C. Garcia (Philippines) -Information source: Fares Fares Arab Description: Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the video channel)
This video was filmed in an intensive fish farm located in Ismailia region, Egypt. The greenhouse has a dimension of 54×60 meters and hosts 42 grow-out circular tanks with a 7-m diameter each. The plastic lining has a 1 mm thickness with a guaranteed durability of 10 years in sun and 15 years in shade.
The water depth in the tanks is 175 cm and the daily water exchange rate is about 5%. The farm depends on underground water from 28-m deep well. Water temperature during winter ranges from 21 – 23 C eliminating the need for heating facilities. Because the salinity of well water is about 25 g/l, a mixing with freshwater takes place to bring the salinity down in grow-out tanks.
Fish grown in the system are all-male of either Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) produced in a hatchery within the facility, or red tilapia initially brought from United Arab Emirates.
The first phase of production (not seen in the video) is done in an outside hatchery and fingerling ponds where tilapia fry are grown on natural food for three months ending by juveniles of about 70-g average size which are moved in the greenhouse where they are stocked at a density of 110 fish/m3. The grow-out cycle is 3 months with a target production of 1.5 ton/tank (25 kg/m3). The average harvest size is 250 g. Feed used is commercial floating feed of 30% protein. The management of the farm adopts the harvest every about 10 days. The greenhouse shown in the video is phase one while there is phase two has been prepared as shown in the end of the video. There is also about one hectar of land that is planned for the completion of integration between the aquaculture facility and vegetable crops.
