CATFISH FARMING

Catfish farming involves the rearing of catfish either for commercial purpose or for personal consumption. I personally deadly with catfish, and for over 2 years now have been into it, although a times it seem difficult to keep up with, but patience is a key factor in every business. Catfish business is a very profitable business to set in, in Nigeria it can be prepared in various ways, either by smoking it, by boiling it or by even making pepper soup with it. People really enjoy eating catfish that they can go any extent to purchase it.

Catfish farming can be a huge source of income to a farmer if only be is well acquainted with the due procedures of rearing catfish, he could also run at loss if he turn careless in running his business. Like I said in my proposal submitted earlier, purchasing the fingerlings to rear might be very cheap, but growing them at different stage with different fish feed carries the major cost expenses in catfish farming.

CRITERIA CONSIDERED WHEN SETTING UP A CATFISH FARM

1.) A Pond:
There are different kinds of ponds, we have the artificial concrete pond and the natural earthen pond. Anyone of them is okay as far as you can manage them duely and there is an adequate inflow and outflow of water. To ensure optimal flow of the fishes in the pond, there must be flowing quality water. You pond must also be deep enough to accommodate the fishes conveniently and comfortably that's why deeper ponds are preferable. The size of the pond determines the number of fishes you put into it, if you want to rear 1500-2000 fishes an ideal size of pond to use should be around 50ft x 50ft wide with a depth of 4ft.

In essence, ensuring good pond depth, consistent inflow and outflow of good quality water makes your fishes eat well and grow well.

2.) A Lot Of Water:
Good quality water is a fish farmer's best friend. Ensuring an optimal quality of water makes the fishes to eat well and grow well and reduces their chances of been infected or contaminating diseases. They get infected in dirty and polluted water.

3.) Good Fingerlings From A Reliable Source:
Fingerlings are young fishes that are about 0-2 weeks old. In an attempt to hasten things up, some breeders uses fishes that are not matures enough to hatch the fingerlings. This always result in premature fingerlings that do not eat or grow well. To get good fingerlings, you have to look for impressive farmers around that have breeder successfully via the same source in years, tested and trusted.

4.) Protective Nets:
Its is always safe to net your pond whether it is a concrete or an earthen pond. Predators such as birds enjoy eating baby catfishes, so it is always advised to net your pond until the fishes are about 2-3 months old.

5.) Adequate Fish Feed:
Fish feed is the aspect of fish farming that consumes more finance, it is essential to make the fishes to feed well as this is also paramount to their growth. Mostly I start with floating feeds for fingerlings and juveniles then I switch to the local or sinking feed. The smaller the fish, the more intensive their feeding is, as for fingerlings, you might have to feed them 2-3 times daily. There are different sizes of fish feeds ranging from 0.3mm-0.4mm floaters to 6mm-10mm. The bigger the fish the larger their feed size.
Here are my recommendations;

• For fingerlings (3-4gramms), is light floaters of 0.3mm/0.4mm or w maximum of 1.5mm fishfeed size to feed them 2-3 times daily.

• Post Fingerlings (4-6gramms) use maximum of 1.8mm feed size to feed them once or twice daily.

• Juveniles (6-10gramms) us 2mm feed size to feed them once or twice daily.

• Post Juveniles(50-150 grams) use 3mm feed size to feed them once daily.

For fishes weighing 150-400grams, use 4mm feed size to feed them once daily.

For fishes weighing 600grams - 1kg, use 6mm to feed them once daily.

If they exceed 1kg then you can feed hem with 8mm feed size.

There are basically 2types of Catfish feeding;

1.) Broadcast Feeding:
It entails going round he pond o spread feeds round the pond ensuring that the fishes eat from every corner of the pond, this is done mainly to the fingerlings and juvenile fishes. Spreading floating feeds across the pond so that every fish at any corner can eat.

2.) Spot Feeding:
This feeding consumes less time and I term it note effective because it enables you to monitor the individual feeding of the fishes, it has to do with feedingte fishes on one spot. They all gathered to eat that that very spot.

That is me feeding catfishes using spotfeeding method

Lastly I shall be talking of the components of a fish feed, that is what you fish feed is made up of and what it contains.

Every too formulae for fish feed contain a reasonable amount of protein for the fish's growth and Carbohydrates to give them strength. Fish feed especially for fingerlings to post juveniles stag contains soya meal, groundnut cake, biscuit, molasses etc.

Thanks for reading through.
ALL IMAGES ARE GOTTEN FROM VIKEBUN FISHFARM.

This is the link to my scfes proposal, you can visit to read more on the costs incured in setting up a fish farm.

https://steemit.com/farms/@vikebun/one-farm-at-a-time-vikebun-fish-farm-seeking-for-grant-steem-from-farms-for-my-fish-farm-expansion-project-under-the-agro