Thread: Best feed for Pla Duk hatchlings?

Originally Posted by mellow

need to determine what may be the best type of feed to give them.

We raise Pla Duk on a small scale and purchase feed from local shop. They do very well on it and loss is minimal. The feed contains mostly, rice meal, corn meal, fish meal and vitamin B-12, A and E supplements.

Pla Duk can be raised year round as they are not particularity temperature sensitive.

We have mixed sizes in the same tank and although it may happen have not seen evidence the larger are eating smaller.

Suppose you could make your own feed but strongly advise you buy from local shop. Not expensive and well worth the money.

Originally Posted by artist

Rice bran mixed with water into a paste

nope.

the larvae need a 60% protien feed, or they will starve, die off or eat each other.
if they survive a week or so, you could grind up some fishmeal very finely (good fishmeal contains around 60%protien)

you could dump them in a manured pond (daphnia and other zooplankton will feed and multiply on the resulting algae bloom), the way the thais do it, but copepods will no doubt eat the lot, or keep them in a tank with a water spraybar above for aeration and use formalin on a daily basis, and hatch yourself a helluva lot of artemia (brine shrimp) and feed EVERY 2 to 4 HOURS, day and night!
make sure you buy the 80%hatch-rate artemia, and don't buy ready hatched stuff (they do not contain enough protien once they have used up the yolk-sac) and probably would be too big anyway.
if you are not up for this, then don't waste your time, and just destroy the lot of them.
the only way to viably breed the catfish is to carefully select your broodstock and breed them artificially, and the feed is the most important part of the equation.

good luck

Originally Posted by Gerbil

Originally Posted by tsicar

the larvae need a 60% protien feed, or they will starve, die off or eat each other.
if they survive a week or so, you could grind up some fishmeal very finely (good fishmeal contains around 60%protien)

you could dump them in a manured pond (daphnia and other zooplankton will feed and multiply on the resulting algae bloom), the way the thais do it, but copepods will no doubt eat the lot, or keep them in a tank with a water spraybar above for aeration and use formalin on a daily basis, and hatch yourself a helluva lot of artemia (brine shrimp) and feed EVERY 2 to 4 HOURS, day and night!
make sure you buy the 80%hatch-rate artemia, and don't buy ready hatched stuff (they do not contain enough protien once they have used up the yolk-sac) and probably would be too big anyway.
if you are not up for this, then don't waste your time, and just destroy the lot of them.
the only way to viably breed the catfish is to carefully select your broodstock and breed them artificially, and the feed is the most important part of the equation.

Fcuk me. That sounds like a lot of work. How do the buggers survive in the wild without all this constant care and attention?

fact is:
most of them don't!

momma catfish releases a few hundred thousand eggs at each spawning, and if they are not fertilised within seconds of release, they die.
the fertilized eggs hatch within about 30 hours and the larvae then have to run the gauntlet of predation by other fish ,insects and possible (probable) starvation.
luckily for some, the catfish are triggered to spawn by rising water levels, normally after winter, and with the rising waterlevel comes increased levels of plankton for the larvae to feed on.
fortunately the survival rate is so low, or there would be nothing but catfish in our waters, and this is why commercial operations artificially spawn their own fish.

no point in collecting a few hundred fry that can be produced by natural spawning for fishfarming-you need a few hundred thousand and then you cull out non-performers so you end up using only viable fish or you go bust.
in farming these fish, most of these problems can be overcome under controlled conditions but it is hard work, and a survival rate of 80 to 90 percent can be attained but in thailand the fishfarms that spawn their own fish would typically achieve a rate of 15 to 25 percent using the manured water method with daphnia as feed.

Originally Posted by mellow

Looks like fish meal would be the easiest for us here in Issan. Should it be sun dried then pulped into fine particles, or do you just give it raw? The fish are in cement tanks, with a continuous trickle of water, and air stones. We already lost most of them, but we are going to spawn them again, probably next month, as it warms up.

mellow:

are you spawning artificially?

if so, then i would strongly suggest getting hold of some artemia and practise hatching them before you spawn again.
there are dozens of sites advertising them and you can order them over the net. get the best you can-mine were from salt lake city in the states. the orange tin you can get in petshops in bangkok is rubbish
this will give the best survival rate for the larvae.
the fishmeal will not be ideal for larvae, although ok for fry.
dried and very finely ground.
if you go the daphnia/manured pond route, then get it ready before you spawn them.
you can also use a plankton net and freeze the plankton to kill off anything big enough to eat the larvae, then grind it up in a blender to make it small enough for them and this will be safer than releasing the little guys into the pond.
first 3 days no feed (they have enough from the yolk-sac.
after that they need serious feeding, as i said two hourly initially, or take your chances in the manure-pit.
the egg-yellow you mentioned is ok once or twice but seems to kill them after that, although they DO eat it.
be carefull to remove any fungus (there will be plenty a day or so after hatching) and use formalin twice a day- it is safe for eggs and larvae at the right concentrations. i know you already use the stuff so you should know the dosage-if not i will check my notes and let you know.
btw you don't have to buy the expensive hormone for spawning, use the pituatary gland from the male for this purpose, remove the testes and keep them in the fridge until the female is ready.

there is a great site with both low-tech and high tech methods of raising, spawning and feeding your catfish larvae and fry, easy to build hatchery tank which works extremely well, and (mostly) very good info: just google this bangladeshi site:
MANUAL ON SEED PRODUCTION OF AFRICAN MAGUR

good luck

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by Kikoman

We purchased 500 fingerling from the local hatchery, we did not lose any more than 20 of them, keep them in cement tanks and feed them fish pellets sold at the hatchery they grow fast to a certain size and remain there.

Exactly what we have done. Using commercial fish pellets certainly the least hassle with good result for small scale fish raising. Suppose if one was into commercial fish production making your own feed is more cost effective but will defer to Tsicar, our resident fish expert.

thanks norton, but i am not an expert:

just another poor prick who threw almost all my money into a hole in the water , much like most yachtsmen do/did.
i learned a few things along the way,(STILL LEARNING!) and if i sometimes come across a bit condescending, or perhaps even negative, it is not because i think that i know everything/anything, but because i see so many people doing the same thing i did in the beginning and setting themselves up for a big fall:
ie following the advice of idiots who think they invented or discovered something new about catfish farming, or the thais who think that there is money to be made by MINDLESSLY throwing in a bunch of fingerlings, some cheap, low grade feed and then making a fortune out of netting out the buggers at the end of the year.

fact is that the technology has been studied, known and available for many years, and not one of us aspirant aquaculturists is likely to make a breakthrough following some village "expert"s advice. (just see how many thais start ANY kind of farming venture and stay in it longterm)

ALL of the info that anybody needs is available on the internet, and i am happy to point people in the direction that i eventually took to finally make ends meet and a small profit every month out of the "water chickens"
i would not try pigfarming, or keeping buffaloes or cows unless i knew EXACTLY what i was doing.

we have to realise that what we see in thailand is mostly SUBSISTENCE FARMING, and when a thai tells us that we can simply buy a cow, drive it off to pasture every day and eventually make money off selling/slaughtering the thing, he is talking about a little booze money and maybe some meat to supplement his frog/snake/snail/bat/insect and rice diet; things we mostly can't eat and CERTAINLY not something that we could call "making a fortune", nevermind making a living.
there ARE guys making money from cows and pigs, but they are NOT the backyard boys who did not study the subject properly before jumping in at the deep end.

in our home countries, successfull farmers would mostly have been to university or college, studied the subject and would have to know EXACTLY what they are doing in order to survive................
what is it about thailand that makes it any different?

why the hell would any one of us think that we could farm anything at all in thailand and make a success of it, when we KNOW we would probably not be able to do so in our home country?

nothing wrong with playing around with a cow or pig or two or a couple of hundred catfish fingerlings as a hobby or perhaps for own consumption-lots of fun, but to make money or a living out of it is an whole nuther ballgame, and requires studying up, doing homework, keeping records and bloody hard work.

kikoman figured it out, and he wasn't even under the illusion that he could make a buck out of it all.
he did the maths that so many of us neglected to do before we poured our money into something we know nothing at all about

oh, and steer WAY clear of all the "experts" out there who think that they discovered something new, and are suddenly successfully raising catfish or anything else for that matter and making a profit, while ignoring the known science,going against forty years plus of study of the clarias catfish and input from universities around the world says that they are bullshitters!

i hate these kind of assholes, who brag and bullshit to make themselves feel important, while feeling nothing at all for the guys who they might impress with their big talk, enough to set themselves on the road to ruin.
happy farming, guys!