MEET AN AQUARIST SERIES: JAMAICA
Part III: Ralph Holding

By Howard Norfolk
Aquarticles.com

Ralph Holding is a friend of Robin Hall's, and also lives in Lucea on the north coast of Jamaica. But whereas Robin lives right on the waterfront, Ralph has to drive into the hills up some narrow winding gravel roads to reach his rural property.

Ralph and his wife Marion have a nice house in the hills overlooking Lucea and the Caribbean Sea.

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Ralph is a musician who plays keyboard to entertain tourists at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall Resort, an hour's drive from his house. He works only from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. nightly, and so has every day free to do whatever he likes.

I don't know what he did with his time before, but now he keeps and breeds fish... and fish...and more and more fish!

It all started just three years ago, when his young son asked for an aquarium. Ralph had kept fish himself as a child, so he bought a tank for his son. Then he put more fish into four plastic washtubs, and dug a simple pond beside the house. He soon made twelve more glass tanks for himself, and moved them into one end of his double garage. Within a year his fish had taken over the entire garage, he had built more ponds, and had two long rows of 8' diameter plastic tubs. Now, after just three years, he has a double garage full of breeding tanks, an area of ponds and tubs, two "Systems" of twenty or more 8' tubs, and a fourth System which has a few ponds and is planned for expansion soon.

Ralph showed me around:

The garage is where Ralph breeds fish.

     
Here are some general views of the garage tanks. As shown in my article about Robin Hall, in the Tropics if you don't have enough tanks you can just fill up a few basins on the floor.You don't need lights either - lighting is by natural light through the windows only. Heating?...not needed - outside temperatures vary between about 22C and 32C. Ralph has plastic sheeting on the roof which he says helps stabilise the temperature.

Ralph's favourite fish are angelfish. He is now producing 1500 to 2000 angels each month.

Since he's only been keeping fish for three years, Ralph still has his original two pairs of angelfish, shown here. Most of Ralph's experiments with cross-breeding have been done with these fish and their progeny.

  
An angelfish with eggs, and some young fish.

Ralph breeds other fish in the garage/fish house, including several species of barbs and tetras, guppies, platies, swordtails, gold and blue gouramis, and goldfish.

Brine shrimp hatchery

This 3/4 h.p. Sweetwater Blower powers the sponge filters.

Ralph has learned a lot in three years, using this German book as his main textbook. (He lived 16 years in Germany and is fluent in the language). He says he has also learned a lot from trial and error, and Robin Hall has been a great help as well.

Tucked into one corner of the garage, and not too far from the fish, is Ralph's music studio. Here he prepares his performances for the resort where he works - he puts on a different programme each night. He hopes to record a CD soon, that he can offer for sale.
The garage is apparently not too humid for the electronics - in the Tropics he doesn't need to insulate or heat his fish room, so fresh air comes through open vents and windows all the time. Ralph is currently building a new studio inside his house so this space can be used for yet more fish!

From the garage, we walked behind the house to where Ralph keeps the rest of his fish. The sloping ground is terraced, and divided into four "Systems" which are each covered in a tent of netting. System 1 contains the original pond and is now surrounded by other ponds and tubs where more breeding is done.  Young fish from the garage are moved into System 2, and the grown fish are eventually moved to System 3 where they live as adults in rows of 8' plastic tubs. Zone 4 has more ponds and tubs, and a piece of undeveloped meadow which Ralph intends to level and then install 50 more large tubs.

Yes, the Systems are well protected by netting, to keep out predators. Ralph told me an amusing story of a young white egret he once found inside the netting. He caught the bird and gave it a really good scolding for about half an hour before releasing it. It never came back!

Here is Ralph's original pond. It is now surrounded by tubs of various sizes and the whole area is covered by a tent of netting.

     
Systems 2 and 3 look like this.

As we walked around, Ralph did some maintenance chores. Here he is working with some smaller 56" tubs.

                
The tubs contain thousands and thousands of fish. Here are angelfish...red fin tetras...rosy barbs....

     
and here...unidentified?...fantail goldfish...comet goldfish.

Ralph has some large plecos, which he moves from tub to tub to help clean-up. He also siphons dirt from the bottoms of the tubs.

Ralph breeds and raises these native perch as food for his family. He gives some to neighbours as well.

  
System 4 presently contains several in-ground ponds like this, but is slated for expansion. The ponds hold mostly goldfish, guppies and rosy barbs.

  
Ralph's tanks and tubs are serviced by a maze of plastic pipes which he assembled himself. Water comes from a 4000 gallon tank filled with rainwater from the house roof, and de-chlorinated tap water is also used. Overflow water ends up in this sump.

Filters are all home-made, such as this one.

Fish aren't the only pets in the Holding household. There are also fifteen dogs, including a rottweiler, two Dobermans, mixed Doberman/rottweilers, Rhodesian ridgebacks (shown here), and some mongrels. Some of them are pets, the ridgebacks are bred for sale, and others are kept for security purposes since Ralph is away at work most evenings.

Ralph has been very busy for the last three years, and has done all the construction and development of his fish farm himself. He does have an assistant, John, who helps mainly with feeding the fish and day-to-day routine maintenance. He has sponsored John to attend two fish farming seminars held locally by the Rural Agricultural Development Association of Jamaica.

...After looking at Ralph's fish we went inside the house and I met his wife Marion. Ralph married Marion during his time living in Germany. She is from Bavaria. Marion is interested in naturopathic medicine and had a number of qualification certificates on the walls of her office. I had caught some kind of bug on my flight to Jamaica, so Marion kindly gave me a combination of different vitamins and pills with detailed instructions of how many to take and when. They must have helped because I felt a lot better a couple of days later. Thanks Marion!

Ralph has lots and lots of fish and is looking for a way to sell them. He does sell a few goldfish locally, but would really like to export fish to the U.S. and Canada. He already has an export licence and a list of importers provided by the government export assistant agency, "Jampro," and he and Marion are writing a brochure. One handicap is that although they have computers, the Holdings are not on the Internet because their rural property does not yet have a landline telephone service. (They use cellular 'phones). They are co-ordinating their business ideas with Robin Hall, however, who is on the Internet.

Should you wish to contact Ralph and Marion Holding, and perhaps get a copy of their brochure, their address is:
Weinbeer-Holding Fishfarm,
Lucea, P.O. Box 4785,
Hanover.
Jamaica.
West Indies. 

Fax: (876) 956 9751