It’s very sad to learn things the hard way.

I made a very expensive mistake in constructing fish pond in my farm. This farm has lots of departments in it; piggery, poultry, fishery, snarly, seedlings pineapple orchard etc etc.

I’ve been putting serious effort to see that these phases as mentioned above were completed by December 2022 so that we could start business. Last year was all about construction; from January to December 2022 was very busy for me and my workers.

This is the farm view from security camera, some departments were not captured but I’ll be bringing updates your way over our activities here.

Funding this farm project has not been easy at all because when I started dreaming of a sustainable farm that could help cub unemployment and promotes food availability in my community, I thought I could easily find help/loan from banks, but all my expectations went oblivion with strict and unfriendly conditions from banks.

I started looking for help online by presenting my project plans to our friends in Web 3 space and on blockchain technology. I’ve been a blogger since 2017 which has helped me a lot a means of socializing with many good people around the world. People looking at my seriousness and consistency towards my plans continued to support me; so I was able to raise some funds from crypto currencies as Bitcoin Cash, Hive, Steem, Telos, etc. I was able to build my own house from money made from my ICT jobs and from blogging on Web 3 platforms.

The collapse of my fish pond

I spent around $2k on building fish farm section of my multipurpose farm. But in trying to save some money, I made a mistake that I wouldn’t want others who maybe looking up to me to make in building fish ponds.

I formed the ponds with bricks 🧱 and few pillars in between each ponds like shown in the picture below. I honestly didn’t know about the construction process before now because I’m one among few people that has attempted building sustainable projects in the community.

After constructing the ponds, I did thorough finishing work that includes good plastering that would prevent it from leaking water and so on. I made arrangements for fingerlings (baby fishes) which supposed to be the first batch ever to be introduced in the fish ponds. My ponds has the capacity to take up to 10,000 fishes. But before introducing fishes to the ponds, I needed to treat the concrete ponds for the first time; some call the process dis-virgining of concrete ponds. Failure to treat concrete ponds may warrant serious casualties and deaths for the fishes.

You can check my last post to see the process of getting your new concrete ponds ready for first fish adoption here @maxdevalue/natural-and-cost-effective-way

The unexpected

Every arrangements has been made, and I was so excited to see my project completed, treated and just waiting for booked fingerlings to arrive from the vendor, but then the unexpected happened!

The process of getting ponds ready for the first use demands that after cleaning 🧼 the pond from the materials used in disvirgining them, they should be filled with clean water for 3 days before fingerlings can be launched. So in my case, I filled the 5 ponds with water and was only expecting for my booked baby fishes(fingerlings)to arrive.

My pond collapsed and wrecked some other things around. This is absolutely unexpected and painful for me. I got the message from my site manager and I immediately connected with security cameras. The first thing that I asked them through the camera was about the safety of people around, and I was informed that no one was hurt except other collateral damage incurred on our fence and gates.

I called my vendor to cancel my order. It wasn’t easy for them to cancel such orders because some of such sellers do hatchling based on demand; sometimes they may not have another client available to buy those cancelled orders. After narrating my story to them, they considered my predicament and canceled the order.

##What next??

That’s the big question; where did I go wrong, how do I identify my error, should I dump the project, do I still have funds to repair the ponds? These are questions that occupied my heart and made me depressed.

Well, I started from trying to identify where I got it wrong with my construction that made the pond to blow up that way because of water pressure. I invited another professional in fishery business who had spent time as an architect and civil engineer. He came and looked at the construction, he first admits my efforts and entrepreneurial spirit as he said. Nevertheless he pointed out my mistakes for me.

For you to understand my mistake, I think it’ll be better to visit the foundation and the earlier stage of our construction so that you can pick the mistakes easily. Look and the below picture; that’s the foundation stage of the construction. Please observe the position of rods which formed the pillars for the fish pond.

The professional looking at the drawing and at each level of construction and pointed out that the fortification of the pond was not enough to carry the pressure and weight of the water. He even said that I’m too lucky to experience the collapse when fishes has not yet introduced in the pond.

He said that we failed to chain the pillars roundabout with rods and concrete after each 2 brick layers. And he advised that is either we start new ponds or totally overhaul these ones by correcting the errors in all of them; not just at the section that collapsed.
He further advised that we should continue with any of the five ponds until they’re fully equipped to carry the weight of both water and fishes to come.

So you can understand now that bricks doesn’t carry weight neither will they absorb weight of water, they easily soak with water and become weak. So my mistake was that I didn’t reinforce the ponds with required reinforcements. I admit to my mistakes and have learned from them. It’s is so painful 😓 for me but I gotta move on.

Where should I start from in correcting my mistakes and the loss?

This incident has stepped me backwards with my expectations and plans. I collected some loan to augment other funds raised for this project, and was supposed to start paying back the loan and it’s interest this passed January 2023.

I’ve sent letters to my sponsors on this incident that occurred, and they sympathize with me and are willing to extend my refund period.

Now I have to work very hard to raise funds to continue on this project or I may lose out entirely and disappoint everyone around. I’m not giving up either! I’ve been doing all these great works with crypto currencies, with support gotten from my blog writing, from money made from ICT jobs, support gotten from Bitcoin Cash community through Flipstarter and loans I acquired from other supporters.

Indeed my projects has improved so many lives in my African community, many depends on my projects for their daily bread especially now that life is very difficult in some parts of the world.

We’re building sustainable projects that can ease the challenges facing my community.

All these efforts were born out of necessities and challenges facing my community. I’ve tried to mitigate some of these challenges, and I’m happy that you’ve been there for me, for my family and my community in general.

My life isn’t just about me, but about my neighbors and community members who comes around my farm, my house for their daily bread. Many of them are willing to do some few chores just to make little money for their family. I’m committed to support them with every fiber of my being this little time that I have on earth.

Therefore I do lots of things especially those things that are sustainable; from providing potable water to my community to providing solar energy for their electricity needs, from engaging in farming to training the youths in achieving self worth.

This isn’t the kind of life that I wanted to live, but I discovered that true happiness is when we’re able to put smiles in the face of others, therefore I changed my life pattern to accommodate others.

My encouragement has been you! Yes I mean you that have been by me in all my struggles, achievements and stories.

Thanks so much for being there.

In conclusion

We’ll first of all raise funds and fix the fish ponds and from there we move on with our plans. The next thing you’ll see will be more pleasant because I’ve learnt from my mistakes and I’m much better now.

Tune in to my blog page for updates about the ponds. If I’m able to raise funds, then I can further the repair but if not, then I’ll have to continue with other things, maybe raise money gradually for it. Let’s see how it goes. Your support is highly appreciated. Share this post if you think it may help another person somewhere.
I’m your friend Max.