Fish Condominiums
Philippines
In the Philippines, GP Connect representative Dondon Marquez is successfully introducing “fish condominiums” to rural communities in Mindanao. The “condos” are made of multi-level chambers (drums) that allow a family to raise fish in their backyard. The design optimizes utilization of electricity to filter and aerate the water. The filtration design is simple, cheap, and effective, allowing the continuous reuse of water. Catfish can grow to a marketable size in four months. Families can maximize the results when vegetable farming is incorporated into the system to utilize the waste from the fish farming.
In the community of La Paz, the project, titled School Inside the Fish (SIFISH), started as a school project. It has become a demonstration farm for replication in the community. At the school, the fish condo is connected by hose to a vegetable garden so that waste from fish condo can be used as organic fertilizer for the vegetables garden. Fish condo wastes are also used in mixing the feeds for a poultry project. As of October, the project had yielded a return on investment of 28% from the latest harvest of the catfish, increasing hope to expand the project in the community.