Current Cycle Status — Financial, Operations & Feed Plan

FEED Which feed line to buy

Recommendation: CJ Aqua Maxi Premium Floater, all three stages.

Two reasons CJ Aqua Maxi wins: it's the cheapest or near-cheapest per kilo at every stage, and CJ's mill is physically in San Rafael, Bulacan — the shortest supply chain available, which means fresher feed and lower risk of a delivery gap mid-cycle. B-MEG Prize Catch is a credible backup if a distributor relationship favors San Miguel's network instead.

Stage switches go by sampled weight, not the calendar — move to Grower at 70g average, Finisher at 170g average (BFAR Region 8 techno-guide thresholds, the most specific source available).

URGENT Feeding rate & frequency — by actual size

Length-to-weight reference (FishBase allometric formula for Chanos chanos, W = 0.00851 × L^3.06) — useful for estimating weight from a ruler when a scale isn't handy:

Caveat: this is a population-average formula, not an official BFAR hatchery grading chart (none was found that grades fingerlings by inch-length — Philippine hatcheries grade later juveniles by girth/finger-thickness instead). A thin vs. plump fish of the same length can vary ±20–30% in actual weight — use as a planning estimate, not a substitute for the tracker app's weight sampling.

Refined feed-rate table (BFAR Region 8 "Bangus Culture in Cage" techno-guide — the primary source behind the rounded 7%/4%/4% figures used elsewhere in this doc, with exact gram cutoffs):

At an estimated 10–20g, your fish are in the steepest part of the entire feeding curve — 7.2–10% of biomass/day, the highest rate of any stage in the cycle. Source is a marine cage-culture guide, not pond-specific; the lower end of each range is usually more appropriate in a pond with healthy lablab than in a cage with zero natural food.

What to do, by size milestone:

Data gaps, stated honestly: no milkfish-specific controlled study comparing growth/FCR at 2x vs. 4x feeding frequency was found — the 4x figure is a BFAR operational recommendation, not a quantified study result. The source guide is marine cage culture, not Paombong's brackishwater pond; rates likely transfer by weight-stage since they reflect fish physiology, but pond-specific feeding-frequency guidance wasn't found. No official BFAR inch-to-gram hatchery chart exists — the FishBase formula above is the best available bridge.

URGENT Box B density risk & the split trigger

BFS-019 planned 60,000 fingerlings spread across both ponds — Box A (3.4 ha) and Box B (1.1 ha) — for a blended density of ~13,300–14,400/ha. What actually happened: 65,000 went entirely into Box B, because Box A wasn't ready in time. That's a real, current density of:

Biomass climbs fast in a pond this small

Biomass at 85% survival (55,250 survivors), using the actual 65,000 stocked. After the split, 65,000 fish across the combined 4.5 ha works out to ~14,444/ha — squarely inside BFS-019's modeled safe range. The split is what fixes this table, not better pumps.

The split trigger — formalizing the plan already in motion

Box A is currently in active prep — drained, being limed and dried, getting ready for refill. Per BFS-015's lablab-vs-feeds framework, Box A will run feeds-only this cycle, not lablab — Gary's own plan, and a sound one given the timing. Gary's stated trigger is "Box A will be ready whenever it's getting crowded" — which is already the right way to think about this: by the fish, not by the calendar. Here is what "crowded" means in numbers, so Aaron & Sean can act on it without waiting on a call to Gary:

PROJECTION Biomass & growth — two honest scenarios

Nobody knows yet which growth curve these actual fish are on. Two reference paces, both starting from the real Jun 24 stocking date at ~15g and 85% survival (55,250 survivors, with a realistic sensitivity range of 68–80% if conditions are tougher than expected):

Scenario A — conservative, BFAR cage-pace

Scenario B — faster pace, implied by BFS-019's planning curve

TIMELINE Full cycle — Jun 24 stocking through harvest

This week's monitoring checklist (Day 6 onward)

• Daily DO readings at 5am and 2pm, starting now — log both
• Visual gasping check at the surface, especially pre-dawn
• Daily pump function check — both pumps, every day, no exceptions
• Daily mortality count — 5%+ in week 1 triggers investigation per BFS-017
• Weekly weight sampling — this is how the 15–20g split trigger gets caught in time
• Weekly report to Gary — mortality, DO log, weight sample, pump status

FEED COST Stage-by-stage bags & cost, both harvest targets

Using CJ Aqua Maxi pricing (Section 1) and stage FCR 1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6, on 55,250 survivors (85% of 65,000 stocked):

The jump in Finisher bags from Path A to Path B (460 → 884) is the single biggest cost driver between the two harvest options — growing from 300g to 420g roughly doubles the Finisher-stage feed bill, because that's the heaviest-feeding stretch of the whole cycle. Order Starter now; stage Grower and Finisher purchases to match the weight-based switch points, not a fixed calendar.

DECISION Financial model — Path A (~300g) vs Path B (~420g)

Both paths use the actual 65,000 stocked, 85% survival (55,250 survivors), and the corrected ₱93,000 actual fingerling cost. Other per-cycle costs (labor, power, misc.) are carried at BFS-019's ₱280,000 planning baseline — not yet confirmed against actual spend since Jun 24 (see Section 8).

Profit per day of pond occupancy — the number that actually matters

Raw profit favors Path B every time, because it's more fish-days of growth. But Path B also occupies the pond longer, delaying the next cycle. Normalizing by days in the water gives the fairer comparison:

Partial / selective harvest — flagged, not modeled

COST-TO-DATE What's confirmed, what's still unknown

NEXT Open items for Gary

• Which growth-pace scenario are the real fish on? Section 4's two scenarios are 28–38 days apart at harvest. A Day 30–40 weigh-sample (which the team needs to take anyway, for the split trigger) will answer this — track actual average weight against both curves and see which one it's tracking.
• Which market price to standardize on? The live tracker app uses ₱140/kg; prior farm docs (BFS-019 and others) use ₱160/kg. This isn't a small gap — Section 7 shows it's worth ₱330K–₱465K of profit depending on path. Pick one number and use it everywhere so projections stay comparable across documents.
• Is partial/selective harvest actually workable in Box B? Needs an operations answer on netting/gate feasibility before it can be modeled — see Section 7.
• Confirm setup, labor, and power costs since Jun 24 so Section 8's cost-to-date picture stops relying on a planning placeholder.
• Lock a target ready-date for Box A against the water-quality criteria in Section 3, so the split trigger has a real calendar anchor rather than just "whenever it's crowded."