Coloured fish offers promising returns

The compound with a high perimeter wall and a blue gate in Zimmerman estate, Nairobi, can easily be mistake for another city residential house were it not for a signpost at its entrance.

It is teeming with dairy cows, turkeys, indigenous chickens, guinea fowls, greenhouse tomatoes and tissue culture bananas.

However, it is the booming fish farming venture that makes the more than 10-acre farm click.

Francis Kirima, the owner of the farm, says he stumbled upon the idea of fish farming a few years ago when the government started promoting fish rearing and eating through the economic stimulus programme.

After attending several workshops organised by the Ministry of Agriculture at Sagana Aquaculture Centre, Kirima dived into aquaculture keeping catfish, tilapia and breeds of ornamental fish.

“I dug two small earthen ponds and put in over 3,000 tilapia and catfish fingerlings. After eight months the fish were ready for harvest. I sold them to my neighbours at Sh300 each,” says the farmer who has so far put Sh600,000 in fish farming.

The farm is christened Destiny and is surrounded by tall trees which supply oxygen. It now has 19 fish ponds.

Kirima’s interest is however in ornamental fish which he says has good prospects.

“This is the business I want to concentrate on because there are a few people in it.”

SET IN INCHES

The price for the aquarium fish is set in inches unlike tilapia and catfish whose prices are pegged on their age and weight, according to Peter Mwangangi, the manager of Destiny Farm.

One pond has about 3,700 fish. The farm has ornamental fish that include Goldfish, Orandas and Black Molly.

“One-inch gold fish fingerlings sell at Sh150 and Orandas at Sh500 an inch and Black Molly at Sh400. A mature ornamental fish can cost up to Sh12,000,” Mwangangi says.

He started with 60 ornamental fish, which they purchased at a pet shop in Kirinyaga in October 2014.

“We bought them purposely for breeding and they have now multiplied to over 20,000,” he says. The market for ornamental fish farming is still small.

He uses chicken droppings and rabbit urine to fertilise the fish ponds as the two encourage growth of planktons which are vital feeds for fish.

“These varieties of fish are quiet sensitive and thus tend to have high mortality rate especially when not carefully managed.”

Margaret Njeri, a curator at the National Museums of Kenya, says that ornamental fish should be fed on flakes and pellets. Care should be taken not to overfeed them.

“Flakes are suitable for small aquariums while pellets or granules do well in larger ones. The aquarium water needs to be changed after about a month. Twenty per cent of the water is removed and a fresh supply added to reduce ammonium level,” Njeri explains. Excess feeds will contaminate the aquarium water.

Kirima earns at least Sh30,000 a month from the coloured fish. This is besides the returns the farm generates from making aquarium boxes. One-and-half square feet aquarium goes for Sh8,000.

They sell their fish to pet shops in Yaya and Sarit Centre malls in Nairobi.