To make some money on the side, I took up fish farming. I made the biggest tanks the government recommends. That is 10 feet by 10 feet. 100 square feet. Go bigger or go home, they said. Later it turned out to be go bigger and exhaust yourself. I realized the hard way that a big tank is very difficult to maintain when it comes to harvesting the produce and siphoning the debris. Especially if you are a one-man team. So now I prefer 5*10 or even 5*5 tanks. Keep in mind these are cement tanks, which means you need to bend in order to work on them. It kills my back very badly. I don't know why. Maybe my VATA dosha isn't balanced. Anyhow, every time I work on those, I need to take breaks to calm my inflamed back, which is very upsetting.

Here's a tip for you if you're gonna take up fish farming. Especially ornamental fish farming. You will hear in some places that putting coconut leaves in water for certain species is good. But in my experience, coconut leaves make the water dirty. Ultimately, it makes you do a 100% water change. How do I know that? Well, I'm glad you asked. I took that advice because I received a lot of baby fish, which were smaller than the desired size. I couldn't even see them after I placed them in the tank. So I thought I'd put an arecanut leaf because it's going to create a slime that baby fish can eat. Also, it's going to provide hiding places for them. It did both of those.

But after a few days, an oily film started to form. Then the water started to give off a bad smell. That oily film turned into a bluish tint. At that time, I realized what I had done and removed the palm leaf. It was very smelly. The leaf. Then did a partial water change very carefully. Skimmed the oily film using a small cup with the help of my family. Layed newspapers on the water surface and removed them. Basically did all the things a book would say. But still it wasn't enough. Fish were lethargic. Didn't eat food. Water still smelled bad. Then we decided to do the most exhausting thing. That is to catch every single one of those baby fish and place them in another tank with clean water. It's going to take multiple days(currently doing). Anyhow, that's how hard it gets when it comes to fish farming when you do dumb things. Unnecessary work. Well, you learn from your mistakes. What else can I say?

Now let's talk money. The first time I raised fish for money, I did another dumb thing right at the time of selling and lost all the money. So that's that. This is the second time. I placed 1000 pairs of fish and don't know how much left now. It's been 3 weeks or so since I put fish in the tank. They take three to three and a half months to reach the selling size if you do everything correctly. Bought fish food twice until now. So in a future article, I will do a breakdown of cost and profit. Until then, one thing I have to say: farming fish is harder than you think.