Prepared for the Eastern Cape Aquaponics Farm by Richard Buschagne, YBA Group
2026-05-06
When we began working on the Eastern Cape farm, the goal was clear: take an existing-but-underperforming aquaponics facility and rebuild it into a commercial-scale Tilapia and Pangasius operation, targeting 1,000 kg of fish to market every month.
Over three deep working sessions and many follow-ups, we have:
This document summarises what we’ve already built together, lays out the next phase of how I’d like to support you operationally, and explains where this fits into the larger YBA vision so you can see the long-term picture.
| Area | Existing | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Tanks | 15 × 2.5 m³ rectangular cement-block | 8 × 2,500 L nursery + 4 × 30,000 L grow-out + hatchery |
| Heating | None | 28 °C target (Tilapia optimum) |
| Flow | ~25 m³/hr | 32–36 m³/hr nursery, 180 m³/hr grow-out |
| Production | Underperforming | 1,000 kg Tilapia/month + Pangasius secondary |
| Stocking density | Variable | 60 kg/m³ at full grow-out |
| Cycle | Inconsistent | 10–11 month grow-out, 600–800 g harvest |
Nursery (8 × 2,500 L = 20,000 L total)
Grow-out (4 × 30,000 L = 120,000 L total)
Hatchery
Broodstock Plan
A modular SOP has been created covering daily / weekly / monthly checklists, grading protocols, loss accounting, tank rotation framework, and broodstock management for both species. This connects directly into the broader YBA Agriculture SOP — a comprehensive, living seed-to-fork operations manual that I am building as the knowledge base for our long-term platform (more on that below).
This is the part most people don’t realise: in the course of working on your facility, I’ve been quietly building a structured, queryable knowledge base of everything aquaponic, aquacultural, and farm-operational. Your farm sits at the centre of it.
The knowledge base currently includes:
| Parameter | Target | Action threshold | Critical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water temperature (Tilapia) | 27–30 °C | < 25 or > 31 °C | < 22 or > 34 °C |
| Dissolved Oxygen (Tilapia) | 7–8 mg/L | 4–5 mg/L | < 4 mg/L (gasping) |
| pH | 6.5–8.5 | 6.0 or 8.6+ | < 6.0 or > 9.0 |
| Ammonia (TAN) | 0 mg/L | 0.5 mg/L | 1.0 mg/L |
| Nitrite (NO₂) | < 0.2 mg/L | 0.1–0.2 rising | > 0.2 mg/L |
| Fish mortality / cycle | ≤ 3 % | 5 % max | ≥ 6 % audit |
| Water flow | 1 exchange / 60 min | 10 % below setpoint | > 15 % below |
The full month-by-month development curve is locked — start weight, end weight, feed size, feed percentage of body weight, feeds per day — from yolk-sac fry through harvest at 600–800 g. Your team can pull the right feed regime for any tank at any moment.
When in doubt, STOP FEEDING FIRST, then stabilise water quality.
This entire knowledge base is the foundation of what I’d like to put into your hands next.
Now that the engineering is locked and the SOPs are drafted, the next phase is operational support — putting an AI-powered operations brain into your team’s hands so the knowledge above is always one message away, your records always stay current, and the system gets better the longer it runs.
I’d like to offer you a tailored version of our newest product — YBA Edge Foothold — pre-configured around your farm.
A dedicated AI operations brain for your farm. Hosted on our infrastructure, available to your team via Telegram or WhatsApp, pre-loaded with the full Agriculture SOP, your facility’s specifications (tanks, pumps, flow rates, heating), the Tilapia growth table, the water-quality standards, and every supplier and equipment spec we’ve documented.
Your team — including yourself, the farm manager, and the hatchery supervisor — can ask things like:
R 2,400 per month + R 3,500 once-off setup.
For context: this is roughly 25% of what a junior operations admin would cost per month, and it does not take leave, does not forget, and gets smarter every week because everything anyone asks it gets remembered.
Month-to-month, no lock-in, 7-days written notice to cancel at any time. Your data is yours — exported back to you on demand.
I’m being upfront about the boundaries: at this tier we don’t send emails on your behalf, post to your social, or touch your finances. Those are deliberate next-tier features once you’ve seen the basics work. We add what you ask for, when you ask for it, and you upgrade only when the additional functionality earns it.
You should know what you’re plugging into for the long term, because your farm becomes part of something bigger.
I’m building YBA Terra — a full farm operating platform that models real-world operations rather than software assumptions. It supports every agricultural domain, with a recursive location hierarchy (Farm → Hall → System → Tank for aquaculture; Farm → Field → Block → Section → Row for open field; and so on for hydroponics, livestock, mushrooms, algae).
The system is batch-aware — every fingerling cohort, every grow-out tank, every harvest lot is tracked from start to finish with full traceability. Crop ≠ product (Tilapia is biology; the 600 g graded fish at packout is commerce — they’re tracked separately and linked).
| Version | What it covers | Status |
|---|---|---|
| v0.1 | Hydroponics — single-system pilot | In design |
| v0.2 | Packhouse, dispatch, procurement | Planned |
| v0.3 | Aquaculture — your farm | Planned |
| v0.4 | Aquaponics — coupled, decoupled, hybrid | Planned |
| v0.5 | Open-field, livestock, poultry | Planned |
| v1.0 | Full farm operating platform | Target Q4 2026 / Q1 2027 |
When v0.3 ships (the aquaculture version of Terra), your farm becomes one of the first real-world reference operations for the platform. Everything we build will already match how you actually run — because the SOP, the water-quality standards, the broodstock plan, the growth tables, the supplier list, all of it has been informed by your facility.
That means:
You don’t have to wait for Terra to start getting value. That’s what Foothold is for. Foothold is the bridge.
If this lands well with you, I propose this sequence:
You’ve already done the hard work — committed to the rebuild, accepted the operating philosophy (200 % engineering, max 3 % mortality, biomass safety first), and trusted the process. What I’d like to do now is make sure that everything we’ve designed actually runs the way it was meant to, every day, with the knowledge always at your team’s fingertips.
This isn’t a step away from the consulting relationship — it’s how we deepen it. The brain I’m offering you is the same approach I use for my own operations. It’s the bridge from a one-off rebuild project into a long-term operating partnership.
Take your time with the document. When you’re ready, let’s talk.
— Richard Buschagne YBA Group
This document was prepared as a partnership proposal and reflects work completed across consulting sessions, infrastructure design, SOP development, and platform planning. All technical specifications, standards, and operating parameters are documented in the underlying YBA knowledge base and can be made available in full upon request.