Complete Guides to hatching a catfish successfully. Catfish business is one of the best agricultural businesses in Nigeria presently. Catfish is the tastiest fish in Nigeria. The greatest desire of every fish farmer in Nigeria is to have more fish to sell.

About 90% of fish farmers in Nigeria buy fries, not realizing that most of the mature catfish are sources of the fries that they use and even sell after hatching. This is why the knowledge of steps guide to hatching a catfish successfully is needed.

Hatching a Catfish (How to DIY)

Hatching a catfish is no mystery at all, all you need is the knowledge of how to hatch it yourself (don’t worry Eurcarlagro.com got you covered) and the necessary equipment to hatch a catfish. From a mature man and woman came a baby, a similar understanding is employed in Hatching a Catfish.

Steps Guide To Hatching A Catfish Successfully

Catfish hatch just like chicks do, this is another similar example. Hatching a Catfish successfully doesn’t need professional expertise, all you need is the right guide to hatching a catfish then you are good to go.

The catfish business is lucrative if you sell mature catfishes, more lucrative when the quantity you sell ar,e many and most wonderful when you can hatch the catfish by yourself and sell. The steps in hatching a catfish successfully will be the answer you need to better your fish business and start a Fish Farm.

Equipment needed in Hatching a Catfish

These are the equipment needed (used) in Hatching catfish
Syringe and Needle
Ovulin and Ovaprim bottles
Basins/plastic bowl ( 3 or more depending on how many fingerlings or Fries you want to get after hatching)
Plastic bags
Towel
Scalpel
Salt solution
Weighing Scale
Net
Plastic spoon

This article is aimed at giving you a step guide to hatching a catfish successfully. In the course of reading or practicals, if you have issues do well to contact us below.

Read Also: How to Design and Construct a Fish Pond

Know & Select the Broodstock

The question on your mind now is “What is a Broodstock?” Did I guess your thought rightly? I think so. A Broodstock is a mature fish (in this case a catfish) that have the potential of producing many eggs or sperm depending on its gender.

The next question on your mind now is “How do I identify a broodstock?” Or “What are the characteristics/ features of a broodstock?”.

To identify a broodstock, all you need to know is one main feature and that is the color of its genitals. A catfish with Red genitalia is a Broodstock.

The simple way to identify a male broodstock is to check the color of the papilla. And how to identify a female broodstock by checking the color of the opening close to the anus (cloaca). If they are red, they are broodstocks.

Now to select the broodstock, after identifying your broodstocks, the next thing to do for hatching a catfish to be successful, is to select the broodstocks you want to use for hatching.

There are some questions you need to ask yourself and answer before proceeding. They are: what’s its size and weight?
Is it too aggressive?
How many fingerlings do I intend to have after hatching?
When do I intend to sell the fish I will use to produce fingerlings?
Do I have any spare broodstock, especially the male at least two extras?
No need to rack your brain, no need for hired professional for you to understand, Eucarlagro.com has all you need to know in hatching a catfish successfully.

The first thing, after identification, is to select by checking the size and weight, knowing the behavior of the catfish you intend to use if you have been observant or if they are countable, intentionally check the size of your pond and how many mature catfish it will contain (remember that the little fry you hatch will soon grow in a mature catfish) and ask yourself if you are going to sell the fingerlings (Fries) because in the course of hatching this will help you in administering hormone inducers.

Weigh the broodstock

One step was gone, six more to celebrate the hatching of a catfish successfully. After selecting the next step is to weigh the broodstock to confirm that your selection was well done. An average broodstock weighs from 3-6kg with the best density of 4-5 t/ha. A broodstock of 10kg or a broodstock with relative productivity of less than 5% of the female weight is discarded, it can’t be used for hatching a catfish successfully.

Best Guide to Hatching a Catfish

Research on Catfish, especially the African Catfish states that 8-15% of the weight of a female fish is the weight of its eggs. So if a female catfish weighs 3000g, the weight of the egg will be about 300g.

Taking this into consideration, 1g of the egg is approximately 700 eggs. To finalize the matter of broodstock analysis, normally farmers recruit new broodstocks from our farms and wild after 2-3 years.
Get her ready!

The next step in this guide is to prepare the female broodstock for propagation.

How do we start? To start, take the female broodstock, at least two fearless people who won’t drop the fish to take to their heels when the Lady(female broodstock) starts some mood swings. One of them is to cover the catfish’s head with a clean towel and then another is to inject the catfish with ovulin because of its aggressive response to the injection

0.3ml/kg is the most advised dosage of ovulin or ovaprim. The catfish is to be injected into the abdominal region. After this, the female broodstock should be covered because for 4-8 hours it will be very aggressive.

Separate the Catfish

After injecting the female broodstock with ovaprim or ovulin, the next thing is to separate the fish for at least 8 hours to reduce its aggressive response to the drug and to enable the fish to secrete more eggs. Remember to cover the bowl as stated earlier and don’t forget that fish needs water to live, so the bowl should have water.

Now see that the steps to Hatching a catfish successfully are not hard nuts to crack. Anyway, the next steps are going to be more demanding than these.

Get the Incubator Ready

Although there are well-made automatic fish incubators, improvising is another good option. All you need is a plastic basin and a spawning net. Put water of 6.7- 7.5 pH in the basin, and spread a spawning net over the water.

For successful hatching of fish try to maintain the temperature of the water used in hatching, the standard temperature of water for hatching a catfish is 28-30°C.

Strip the Fish and Bring out the Milt

In striping a catfish, to be precise, the female fish that was injected earlier with ovaprim, is done by using a plastic spoon to remove the eggs the fish has produced due to the injection from the female genital opening into a clean bowl for propagation.

Striping is done after 8 hours of ovaprim or ovulin injection and isolation. Try not to do it alone, at least an extra hand will do, to avoid accidentally killing the catfish. The next step in hatching a catfish successfully is to Bring out the milt.

Milt is the name given to the sperm sac of a Catfish. Take the male broodstock (which can also be injected with a hormonal enhancer). For success in this step, get at least two male broodstocks to avoid selecting a male with only one sperm sac.

Once you get a good male broodstock, Use your scalpel to cut open the sperm sac. Mix the sperm and eggs collected with the salt solution using a plastic spoon. N/B: cover the incubator with a plastic bag after mixing.

Hatching a Catfish

The final step in hatching a catfish successfully is to take the mixed sperm and eggs and spread them on the spawning net of the incubator.

The period of gestation (for the egg to hatch into fingerling is from 30 hours of incubation. The hatched fries or fingerlings fall through the net into the water. It is advisable to leave the water or to lay eggs there for 72 hours as some take more time to hatch. Anything after 72 hours there is zero probability for more eggs to hatch.

The new fingerlings would then be moved to their pond for them to mature.

Hatching a catfish successfully is something you can do by yourself, just identify the broodstock, isolate them, Weigh the broodstock, inject the female broodstock with a hormone enhancer, separate the injected female broodstock/catfish, and Get your incubator ready (remember that you can easily improvise), Strip the female catfish and bring out the milt from the male catfish, mix properly then incubate for the catfish to hatch.

Conclusion

N/B: the durations in each step are very important, put them in your mind.
So you see, you don’t need a Ph.D. holder in Aquaculture to hatch a catfish successfully Eucarlagro.com got you covered.

For more of these instructive and captivating guides in agriculture feel free to always visit our websites for new articles.
Also Read: How to Start a Lucrative Fish Farming Business in Nigeria