News

I have recently heard from a fishery in Norfolk who I have been supplying since I first started BP Milling, and the stock have been given a new lease of life with a little supplementary feeding. 

Chris and Jane invested in their new fishery about 5 years ago, the resident fish were ancient and dropping in weight, looking rather sorry for themselves. Chris and Jane have plenty of experience in running a fishery as well as a background in livestock farming, so when we suggested supplementary feeding the lakes, it made perfect sense to them.

Chris initially commented on how feeding a low stock carp fishery (which is tricky fishing at the best of times) seemed like a waste of feed, but he persisted and the changes were quick to materialise.

Heres what Chris sent me this morning:

"Hi Ben,
Thought you might like this one. It was 20.12 in March 2016, then 28.02 in Oct 2017 and is now 31.02.
They have certainly packing it on.I now have had 4 carp over 30lbs caught in the last few weeks.
Feed paying dividends.
       Chris."

Our most popular pellet size is now back in production after a long wait for the new parts to arrive. 

I have been stressing all summer about getting the 12mm parts to fit the new machine, they had to be specially made abroad, so I though the chances of them fitting my machine might be slim! But the parts finally arrived some 6 months after I initially placed the order! After a day tinkering and fabricating new tools, I eventually produced my first batch of 12mm pellets! 

At first the pellets were coming out extremely hot and hard, and I couldnt get the machine to run up to speed for all the power it was pulling to run the 12mm. After a few hours running in the new parts I soon had the machine running at capacity, and I'm now confident enough to re-launch the 12mm back on the website. You will find the 12mm option available again in the drop down tabs.

The breakdown time of the 12mm pellet now seems to be much much longer, with 10mm of pellet still staying strong after an hour in water.

Enjoy!

Local fishery 'Woodside' have been in touch after collecting there 2nd tonne this year..."These pellets have been such a help with transforming fish. So pleased with the results. Could not recommend them enough. They also come with great service. Thanks Ben."

 

It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce the completion of the new fish feed mill at BP Milling. The project vastly over-ran the schedule as well as going frightfully over budget, so It’s a huge relief to finally have the new machinery and pelleting processes running at last.

Frustratingly, I can only make 6mm pellets until the 12mm parts arrive later in September. There will be on-going work through the winter to further improve the pellet quality further.

After all the hard work gone into the new plant, I would love to hear your feedback or any other requests for pellet sizes would also be helpful.

View the new promotional video on youtube here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEy-HbKNgpA

Aquafeed magazine is a monthly paper all about the news in the fish feed industry, innovations and developments of ingredients etc. Well a few weeks ago I was asked by the editorial team to write about the feeds that I make and the market that the feeds are designed for. But when this months issue arrived yesterday I was hoping my article might have been published, so I was a little suprised to find myself on the front cover of the magazine! I will copy the article into this blog post below:

 

 

Living the dream spreading manure around the margins of some ponds this weekend, this will leak nutrient into the pond over time and kick start a thriving food chain when the weather warms up. Fertilising the sources of free nutrition!

However, the art of fishery management isn’t as straight forward as that...
I wouldn’t fertilise a pond thats likely to become weedy in the summer or the nutrient will just feed the weed! Neither would I use manure on a silty pond, instead apply chalk to encourage the organic breakdown of the silt which will release nitrate and have the same effect as manure, but chalk which will also neutralise ph and combat the build up of acidic silt layers.

Just returned from a trip to france with AE Fisheries where we visited a number of clients old and new to carry out stock management services.

The week started near Metz at 'Chalet Lake', when we were arrived we were pleasantly surprised to find the lake drained down to 4-5 ft, which made our job of removing silvers much easier. 

Although we had to work hard in the silt to get the net to fish effectively, we managed to crowd up 245 carp between 10lb and 55lb! So sorting that lot was a lengthy process before we could begin removing the thousands of silvers. The carp were held in a pen whilst we had another sweep, which resulted in a further haul of over 140 carp and more rudd removed! 

The next few days were spent on consultancy visits to new fisheries before dropping down to Lemoges to new clients at Forest View Fishery.

We had heard that a 80lb carp was landed in the summer, which made this job a little exciting! Again, it was refreshing to find the fishery half drained so we were confident we could do a good job. After hours of pulling we landed a net full of huge carp, stacks of 40lb carp, just as many 50lb fish and a good number of 60lb fish too! If that wasn't enough, we then uncovered a colossal fish, which could only be the 80, the scales confirmed at over 86lb! An immense stamp of fish all in fantastic condition for the deserving new owners! 

The homeward leg saw us drop into a couple more drained fisheries to remove silvers and unwanted fish to swing the growth in the favour of the carp.

Keep an eye on our facebook page for the video footage of the trip. Or watch the trailer here...

 

 

https://youtu.be/-fxvlRGWZnQ

 

We're not perfect, we have all been there and its an area that we need to be in touch with daily during the summer if you want to make the most of the growing season!

So a little bit about Dissolved Oxygen then...

Maintaining a healthy level of oxygen is key to keeping your fish feeding, so its important to regularly take oxygen readings, by doing so you will quickly learn the contributors to changes in DO2, making it easier for you to anticipate a problem so you can act before any disaster.

Cool water holds oxygen much more effectively than warmer water, so as water temperatures increase, the waters ability to hold DO2 is decreased. Coupled with the rise in oxygen demand from aquatic life within the water, theres no wonder summer oxygen levels fluctuate so much, which is why its so important to check oxygen regularly. 

We always measure oxygen in mg/l rather than %saturation, this gives us a more comparable reading. What happens when oxygen is low?

• Above 4mg/l is healthy
• Below 3.5mg/l carp will reduce feeding
• Below 3mg/l carp will almost stop feeding completely
• Below 1.5mg/l you will begin notice fish gasping for air at the surface 

So by the time you see physical signs of distress, the oxygen has probably been too low for a long time, this is why its important to know when oxygen is on its way down because feeding when oxygen is low will add to the problem as the feed isn't going to be eaten and the feed waste will contribute to the decline in dissolved oxygen.

Oxygen is transferred through surface diffusion on a lake (another reason why water surface area is more important than depth) but once the water is at 100% saturation, no more oxygen can diffuse through the surface. However weed and algae produce oxygen as they photosynthesise, which lifts the dissolved oxygen level above 100%, this is how water becomes supersaturated. Obviously as photosynthesis can only occur during daylight hours, this is the period when oxygen will be increasing dramatically, although the respiration process during the night will cause oxygen to decline during the hours of darkness. So your highest reading of dissolved oxygen will be at the end of the day when the lake has had a full day of sunlight, and your lowest reading will be at first light after the lake has been through a night of weed/algae respiration before the sunlight then allows photosynthesis to lift the oxygen level once again. Its a good idea to take a reading just before first light occasionally, so that you know what level of oxygen you have when it is at its lowest point to give you peace of mind because taking a reading after just 1-2hours of sunlight can be the difference of as much as 1mg/l. 

This is another reason why weedy waters are not ideal for growing fish, because DO2 will be very high during the daylight hours and very low during the night, this inconsistency is not what you want when growing fish! 

Bacterial action during the organic breakdown process of silt, weed, leaf-fall etc will also contribute to a depletion in oxygen. Which is why its a good idea to apply chalk during the winter to accelerate the breakdown of silt before the summer when the biological oxygen demand (BOD) of the water is much higher!

Warm stormy weather is classic oxygen zapping weather, we had a few stormy days in the middle of the summer in 2016 which caused lots of problems in fisheries all over, and even some of our ponds suffered. So its always a good idea to have aeration on standby, and cut back on the feeding if oxygen takes a dive!

Summer is obviously the time to be on the ball with the oxygen meter, especially post-spawning with the added oxygen demand from the growing fry! This is why we take stock management so seriously, removing offspring and unwanted fish gives the best chance to resident fish that you want to grow! 

Oxygen monitoring equipment

There are a number of oxygen reading probes on the market, and we see plenty of variations, but there is only 1 that I could recommend. Cheap probes don't last and they often need constant calibration, whereas the probe that we use is turned on and accurately reading oxygen with the touch of a button, I've had the same oxygen meter for 5 years, without an problems or battery changes! Without a doubt its a must have tool for any fish farmer or fishery owner! Contact for more information or order yours from us now!

 

Because our feeds are so environmentally friendly, we can feed our fish to appetite without sacrificing water quality, whereas the ammonia pollution caused by over-feeding conventional fishmeal feeds can be the cause of fish disease including dropsy, bacterial gill disease and fin rot.
We have been working with Scientific Analysis Laboratories (SAL) to analyse our feeds for impact on water quality comparing them to conventional fishmeal feeds, and traditional angling baits which often raise concern for their contribution to ammonia pollution (i.e. Oily processed meats).
The aim of the trial was to test the ammonia contribution of different feeds commonly associated with over-feeding. The trial was carried out over 3 weeks, independently verified by SAL, and the results were immediately eye-opening, consistently showing the ammonia contribution of our feeds to be as much as 5 times lower than fishmeal feeds.
We knew that by avoiding the use of fishmeal or high oil levels in our feed formulation, our feeds must have a much lower environmental impact, so its pleasing to have the data to back up our theory.