You can start fish farming right in your backyard

By Prossy Nandudu

Charles Mulamata, a resident of Rubaga, a Kampala suburb has demonstrated that it is possible to rear this delicacy right in the backyard of your house.
Mulamata, an electrical engineer, has also turned the backyard of his home into a training place for bicycle repairers.

How he started
Mulamata and his family started fish farming back in 2010 although their efforts started paying off in May last year. Initially, the family harvested nothing from their first stock of 50 catfish due to poor supervision and care.

“The people who were looking after the fish either consumed them and ran away or simply left them to predators,” Mulamata says. “I decided to do some research on the Internet about fish farming and discovered that I could actually rear fish in my backyard,” he adds.

Mulamata studied the technology for about four months. He then started experimenting with the old gadgets he had at home. His old fridge at home came in handy. He modified it and filled it with water. 

He then looked around for an aerator to pump oxygen into the water tank and paid an aquarium seller sh20,000 for it. “He left behind his aquarium with some fish in it, promising to pick them when he delivered the aerator. That was the last time I saw him,” Mulamata says.

The following day, all the fish in the aquarium had died due to lack of oxygen.

This did not deter Mulamata who decided to keep the glass and started experimenting by keeping fish in it. He kept changing the water although he was still in a dilemma on where to get the aerator.

Mulamata later improvised by acquiring a small pump from a vehicle fuel tank. The other challenge was getting a timer to regulate the flow of water.

“I remembered that in a car, there is a flusher unit which acts as a timer to flush at intervals. I decided to modify one to increase its speed so that it could flush for 30 minutes and rest for 15 minutes,” Mulamata explains. The trick worked well and is still in use to date.

Set back
Having overcome the technological challenges, Mulamata and his wife were excited and decided to add more fish, which they hastily bought from a man at Kabaka’s lake. But because the fish were tiny, they found their way in the water pump through the outflow valve. The following day, the fish had clogged the pump and were dead because they lacked oxygen while inside the pump.

That is when the old fridge became handy. That was not the only disappointment.
After buying feed from Ugachick and the surviving fish growing rapidly, Mulamata realised something strange, the ‘fish’ were developing legs. They all turned out to be tadpoles. The person who sold them the ‘fish’ had conned them.

Success
After the disappointment, Mulamata’s wife advised him to visit Kajjansi to get quality and real fish fries.

“We found real fish, bigger and cheap. Each was going for sh200 so we bought about 600,” Mulamata says.
Six months down the road, Mulamata was a happy man.

“We have learnt a lot about fish farming. I harvest my fish for the table and love looking at them in water. The bonus is that the fish droppings give very good manure,” he says.

Fish waste for vegetable growing
The waste which is pumped out of the fish pond provides minerals and fertilisers that facilitate the quick growth of vegetables such as Dodo, Sukumawiki, lettuce and tomatoes.

Mulamata says the vegetables can grow faster than in ordinary gardens. His lettuce and tomatoes usually take 29 days to grow compared to the 60 days the lettuce and tomatoes in other gardens take.