Venturing into catfish farming is one of the most lucrative and profitable livestock business. The rate at which people demand for catfish for consumption has really made some catfish farmers investing more in the catfish business. A lot of catfish farmers are really making a lot of profits in the business. The production of catfish comes in different stages. Catfish rearing are divided into two major parts. We have nursery and the grow-out catfish. The nursery involves the inducement of the female fish to lay eggs, which are then fertilized, incubated and hatched. The fish is known as fries. These fries are then nurtured from between three and four weeks into fingerlings which is the size suitable for use in the fish grow-out operation. The following are different catfish species. blue catfish, channel catfish, flathead catfish, heteroclarias, clarias nigro-digitatus, clarias spp and there are also over 300 other species of catfish. The catfish that is use for hatching is called broodstock.
How to achieve a successful hatching
For you to have a successful hatching the following are the major requirement you need to adopt:
1. They must be good and clean water. Make sure the water is not polluted.
2. Also there must be a good water chemistry monitor
3. Make sure you get a qualify hatchery manager that is very good in hatching.
4. Make sure that you have a good record keeping in the process of hatching.
Ways on how to feed the fries
After the hatching between 36 to 40 hours the yolk sac of larvae will be absorbed. One of the first foods to give them is zooplanktons or artemia produced in the hatchery. Zooplanktons contains the following component
1. Diaphanosoma
2. Sida spp
3. Monia spp
4. Chidorus spp
5. Bosmina spp
6. Cyclops larvae
7. Cyclops spp without egg
8. cyclops spp with eggs
There is a step on how to make Zooplanktons. The following are the simple steps on how to make Zooplanktons. Make sure you Select an earthen pond, such as the broodstock pond. Try as much as possible to remove any small fish. Make sure that the pond have green water (phytoplankton). To prepare zooplankton for a 600-800m2 pond add 20 kgs of chicken manure, 5 kg of lime, 5 kgs N:P:K: fertilizer (16:16:16) and 2 kgs of fine fish meal. Then after about 3 days, zooplankton will be growing.
Different types of catfish feeds
Feeding of the catfish is very important in the area of their growth. There are different types of feed you can use to feed the catfish. This catfish feeds comes in different size. The following are different catfish size, 1.5mm feed, 1.8mm feed, 2mm feed, 4mm feed, 6mm feed etc. We have the local feeds which you can prepare by yourself; we also have the foreign feeds.
The Local feeds: The local feeds always sink inside the water when you are feeding the catfish.
The Foreign feeds: The foreign feeds always float on top of the water when you are feeding the catfish.
The following are the size of feeds you can give your catfish depending on the stage.
1. Fingerlings (3 to 4 grams): 1.5mm feed size
2. Post-fingerlings (4 – 6 grams): 1.8mm feed size
3. Juvenile (6 – 10 grams): 2mm feed size
4. Post-juvenile (10 – 50 grams): 2mm feed size
But when your catfish got to a bigger stage you can also increase the size of the feeds by giving them the following feeds size:
1. 10 – 50 grams: 2mm feed size
2. 50 – 150 grams: 3mm feed size
3. 150 – 400 grams: 4mm feed size
Feeding of the catfish very well is very important because that will determine the size and weight of the catfish.

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