TEDUCT FARMS AND CONSULTS CATFISH HATCHERY PRATICAL TRAINING MANUAL

CAT FISH HATCHERY PRATICAL TRAINING MANUAL

WRITTEN BY: ADEREMI TAIWO ADEOLA

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TEDUCT FARMS AND CONSULTS CATFISH HATCHERY PRATICAL TRAINING MANUAL

SESSION ONE
(Lesson one)
PREPARING TO FERTILIZE THE EGGS
This section is quite important for all those who wish to specialize (like us) in the
production of fingerlings and juveniles.
The following items are what you should get ready in preparing to fertilize the eggs of 1
female fish with sperm inside a 12ft by 3ft by 1foot vat:
A very sharp kitchen knife. A chopping board.
A pair of scissors.
A roll of Tissue paper.
A medium-sized serving flat plate. 2 bag
plastic basins.
A bottle of Ova prim. Injection needle and syringe. Flat head 50kg scale.
A medium-sized hollow plastic bowl.
2 plastic chairs.
5 napkins.
A table size fish net.
A chicken feather or medium sized turkey feather.
Readymade saline solution or a teaspoon full of salt mixed in a bottle of 1.51 spring
water.
A medium sized hollow spoon.
A clock that counts in seconds.
2 or 3 pieces of high quality mosquito nets measuring 13ft by 4ft
12 pieces of hard stones weighing between 500gm-1Kg.

(LESSON TWO)
SPAWNING
By injecting the female fish with the right dose of Ova prim, you induce it
to spawn i.e. produce eggs in large quantities at the same time when mixed with
the male sperm, it fertilizes the eggs to produce fries which grows to fingerlings,
then juveniles and finally grows to the table size catfish which we are all familiar
with. For those who love and appreciate nature, this activity is so interesting and
you will not stop loving it. It could be frustrating though if you don't get it right
the first few times but our advice is "if you try once and you don't succeed, try,
try, try and try again".

This section is quite important for those who wish to specialize in the production of
fingerlings and Juveniles

Under artificial spawning are 8 sub-headings which break down the activities.

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TEDUCT FARMS AND CONSULTS CATFISH HATCHERY PRATICAL TRAINING MANUAL

PREPARING YOUR VAT

24 Hours before spreading the fertilized eggs inside the vat fill vat with
water charged at least partially with Bio-disc. Arrange your twelve pieces of hard
stone inside the prepared vat water, place your aluminum mosquito net on the
stones inside the water, and then spread your kakaban (loosed sack) on it.

Note: All these materials must have been washed in saline water (salt water solution)
before used. See picture below..

Plastic vats
We have 8 subheadings that break down spawning actitivity which is as follows:

Earthen

1. Choosing Your Male and Female (Brood Stock)

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Choosing your male and (particularly) female brood stock is one activity
you will have to gradually master yourself despite what anyone teaches you. This
is because different people hold different opinions regarding to the method to
adopt-and despite what we tell you here, you may be told something else (and
strongly too because it may have worked for them) where ever you choose to buy
your brood stock. But this is what has worked for us, what we tell you here is
what has worked for us too.

IDENTIFYING MALE AND FEMALE CAT FISH

Female Male

1. Spawning Caution:
a. Choose only male and female fishes that weigh above 1Kg so that fries will also
grow into big fishes.
b. Make sure the male organ "crosses" and it is pink at the dot end.
c. When pressing out the female eggs choose only fishes that have eggs that
separate from each other and are golden in color.
d. Where golden eggs are difficult to come by, gentle press protruding tummy of the
female fishes to feel the softest and pick such for spawning. No scientific basis exist
for this method to decide on this whenever purely golden eggs becomes difficult to
come by and the result has been quite Successful.
e. Make sure that the tummy of the female fish slighty protrude out (pregnant, so to
say) when placed flat faced down

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Make sure that the outlet where the eggs of the female fish will come is slightly dark
in color (not white).

All these are the signs to look out for to identify matured male and female brood stock.

Note:
a. When transporting the fishes to your farm, put them in separate containers, 1
fish per container (if possible) keep them separate until you use them.
b. Raise your own brood stock for future use.
c. Before injecting the female fish to induce it to spawn, ensure that it is free of any
stress e.g. that of transporting it from where it was brought to farm.
d. Wait for 24 hours before injecting if you are in doubt as to whether it is stressed
or not.
e. On arrival at your farm, strictly ensure that you keep them separate, 1 fish per
container half filled with water charged with Bio-disc.
f. If you do not keep them separate, they may attack each other and the weaker one
may eventually die before use.

Injecting the female fish

To know the volume of Ova prim to inject the fish with, weigh the fish and draw out
Ova prim at the rate of 0.5ml per kg of fish. If your fish weighs 1.5kg for example, you
need 0.75ml of Ova prim. Make sure therefore that you buy a distinctly visible and well
calibrated syringe.

Now inject the fish, remove from water and place in a plastic barf without water, it should be
held by two person with wet napkins, one holding it at the head and the other. Now inject the
fish following the picture below:

Injecting the fish at the right place and right dose

And thereafter gently put the fish back into the bio -charged water or ordinary water.
The next activity being 8-10 hours later, it is advised to inject the fish around 10-11pm
in the night so that you can strip it 8-9am in the next morning.
(LESSON THREE)

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GETTING THE MALE SPERM

The next morning, 1 hour before the 8-10 hours estimated for the
injection to have finished working, arrive at the farm to kill the male fish in
order to remove its sperm sack. Another reason you need to arrive early is to
observe whether or not the female fish has already releasing its eggs before
the stipulated 10 hours so you can quickly swing into action. At times, after 10
hours it still would not release it eggs, some farmer’s advice that you wait
patiently for the next 1 or 2 hours before stripping it on such occasion but we
have since observed that stripping it right after the 10 hours has no particular
side effect so you may wish to give it a try.

Back to getting the male sperm, the procedure below should be followed:

With wet napkins, 2 people should hold the fish (one by the head, the other by the tail) and
place on the chopping board. The one holding by the head is to slaughter. Now care should be
taken to feel with a finger, the point at which the hard part of the head of the fish
terminates. That hard part has at the end has the shape of an arrow, You are to cut right at
the end of that arrow or cut carefully from the abdominal part of the fish as it is shown
below, using a scissors and fish carefully remove the sperm sack

Picture of the sperm sack

Process of cutting to remove the sperm sack

Most fishes have two sperm sacks with 1 sack usually bigger than the other but times you may
end up with a fish without sperm sack or one with sacks full of fat or with sacks that has
nothing at all in it. To avoid such sudden disappointments (having already injected your
female fish) always get ready at hand 2 male fishes to match 1 female fish.

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Stripping the Female Fish

As soon as you notice that the female fish has started releasing it eggs by itself, (estimated
time 10 hours after injection) it's time for you to strip it fully and to do that, follow the
procedures below:

1. With a net or napkin, gently remove the fish from water and place inside a big plastic
basin wet but without water, placed on the floor in the middle of 2 people sitting or standing
opposite each other.
2. A medium sized plastic bowl where the eggs will be stripped Should be ready at hand.
3. With 2 wet napkins the 2 people should grip the fish, one by the head and the other
by the tail with its stomach facing down. The bigger the fish, the firmer should the grip be,
as the fish can struggle to free itself from your grip. If you allow it to struggle free it may
hit the egg bowl and precious eggs may spill on the floor and waste.
4.
5. Now place the medium sized bowl towards the place where the eggs will come out with
the fish held over such that the person holding the head of the fish can gently press it's
tummy with the other hand so the eggs can drop inside the medium sized bowl as shown in
picture.

6. Keep pressing gently until the protruded tummy becomes flat and all the egg released.
However as soon as you notice blood coming out with the egg, it's time to stop pressing.

Stripping of eggs from the fish to

the bowl.

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TEDUCT FARMS AND CONSULTS CATFISH HATCHERY PRATICAL TRAINING MANUAL

(LESSON FOUR)
MIXING THE SPERM WITH THE FEMALE EGGS AND SPREADING INSIDE THE VAT

As soon as you stop stripping the female fish of its egg, pick up the male sperm
sack which is in a plate by your side with tissue paper wrapped round it and
follow the procedure below:

1. Gently unwrap the tissue paper, remove the sperm sack and using a new blade
or scissors to cut the zigzag end of the sack directly into the bowl of female eggs
as the other person simultaneously rinses the milky Sperm coming out from
the sperm sack into the bowl of egg. This rinsing is to be done with the saline
solution by the second person and done simultaneously as the first person
cutting the sperm sack opens. A few cap full of the 1.5 liter bottle or jug spring
water now turned into saline solution (or few presses of the readymade saline
solution) is sufficient for the rinsing, depending on the volume of eggs you are
mixing the sperm with.
.

Washing the sperm sack with saline water

1. The final solution of eggs, sperm and saline solution need not to be too watery or too
tick. Just a solution you can conveniently spread inside the vat with relative ease.
2. Immediately after rinsing the sperm out of the sack, throw away the empty sperm sack
and with the turkey feather or small plastic spoon begin to mix the solution together.

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Mixing the solutions together (the egg, saline water and the sperm)

3. Do the mixing for exactly 2 minutes and then gently spread The solution inside the vat
that has been prepared for it using the feather, tied loose sack or plastic spoon.

Spreading the mixed egg into the vats

4. Thereafter cover the vat with dark clothe (fishes like dark environment) that
allows for aeration and in short silent prayers beseech the lord for his blessings on your
effort.

Cover your vat very well with a tick tapolyne

5. Open the vat 30 hours after this exercise to see the result of your "WAEC". During the
rainy season, you may wish to wait for 48 hours before opening the vat, but make sure that
you change the water at the stipulated 30 hours. From experience it seems it takes longer in
the rainy season for the fries to come out than in the dry season. If you had been a serious

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student who had paid attention to all the details of this teacher and even done extra work
outside his teachings, your result will bear you out. Don’t mind me am just pulling your legs.
This teacher has failed several times before getting it right and if you try once and you don’t
succeed, try, try and try again. It is very interesting and joyful thing to open your vat 30 hours
after and see fries in their tens of thousands welcoming you for a job well done.

6. But if you succeed the job has just begun as in the next lesson. Every inch of the way is
so interesting, so very interesting you’ll wonder if you'll ever do any business outside fish
farming again.
SESSION TWO
(Lesson one)
MANAGEMENT OF FRIES
PREVENTING EARLY MORTALITY

Quite a number of farmers try to siphon the unhatched eggs on the first day they open the
vat to see the result of their spawning. This is understandable as the unhatched eggs can
easily pollute the water and render it dangerous to the surviving fries, but the danger in
siphoning is also that a large number of fries will be siphoned and being very delicate,
they can quickly die while trying to separate them from the unhatched eggs.

The solution we have found to this problem is to release the water in the vat to as low as
possible and gently full back to as high as possible on the very day that the vat is opened.
This reduces the side effect of the unhatched eggs, i.e. the pollution of the water which
can kill the fries in great number.

No matter how clean the water looks like, you are advised to follow this advice in order to save
the surviving fries. You can effect these water changes once a day for 1 week by which time the
fries would have grown enough to understand the stress of siphoning out the unhatched eggs
but all along make sure you only load the vats with water that has been stored in the water
tank for 24 hours minimum so the pH would have normalized.
What we have also found out is that the black semi aluminum nets used by aluminum
windows producers are much better to spawn with that the common rubber mosquito nets
because the latter easily expands and lets in quite a lot of unhatched eggs while the former
doesn't and once you don't have too much unhatched eggs in the vat the fries are easier to
manage.
The fries should be left unfed until after 48 hours of coming to life or until they free
themselves from underneath the vat and begin to swim about. Thereafter you can feed them
with Atemia which you should purchase from a feed store that has a quick sales turn over
(i.e. sells its products fast) so you don’t end up buying expired Atemia which is certain to
kill the fries.

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The Atemia should be sparingly sprinkled for the fries because they eat only so very little at
the beginning and because if you overfeed them, you will end up polluting the water with the
excess feed and exposing the fries to danger. You should also feed at 3 hours intervals because
it takes them averagely that time to digest the food and be ready for another feeding. You can
feed them with Atemia for the first two to three weeks before changing to 0.5-08mm Copen’s
or Le Cousant feed.

Feeding your fries

(Lesson two)

Water Management: Key to Survival of Fries

In the first few weeks of their existence, the immunity level of fries is so very low just like
for all new burns, so they need to be handled with great care and this has to do primarily
with their environment i.e. the water they live in. Once it gets polluted by their wastes
and excess feed, you expose them to danger and the result is high mortality which, once it
starts, is difficult to control. The best thing therefore is to prevent it. HOW? By siphoning
the dirt and excess feed daily and changing the water once in 3-4 days. At 3 weeks old,
mortality rate of fries usually increases, so to avoid it, add recommended dosage of
antibacterial/fungus drugs to their water and keep this up for 3 weeks if need be.

Take note that Atemia they consume at this stage is very high in protein
content and overnight leftovers will quickly pollute the water if left un-
attended to for days.

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(Lesson three)
Spacing Out For Quick Growth

This spacing out principle actually applies to all developmental stages of cat fish i.e. from fries
to table size. It is common knowledge in fish farming that if fish are crowded in a pond, they
don’t grow fast

By the way nothing seems to grow fast if they are crowded in a little space from human beings
to plants and animals, every creature seems to need space to grow and fries are no exception.
In the first one week a vat of 12 by 13 by 1 should be able to contain almost any quantity of
fries that can be produced by one female fish, however if you are fortunate to spawn a fish that
produces great volumes of fries, by the beginning of the second week it may start becoming
obvious to you that you should space out the fries.

Their numbers and obvious slow growth rate would tell you so. However beginners may not
immediately recognize the right time to spread them out so if you think your fries are too
many in your vat, call any experienced farmer closed to you to visit and help to check whether
it’s time to space them out. With time and benefit of experience you will soon be able to decide
such things yourself.

Space out for quick growth

In the management of fries, the likelihood is you will want to discountenance this very
important duty under the excuse that..........."How many can the shootout really eat?
Shoot outs are the strong aggressive fishes that rush first for the food thereby getting
bigger and stronger than the less aggressive ones and end up cannibalizing the smaller
fishes. Because of the troublesome work involved in the periodically removing them, the
tendency is to wantto ignore them thinking they don't cannibalize much but I bet, you
will have a change of heart if you count your fishes at two months intervals without sorting
and see the difference in the figures. So take the trouble to remove the big fries as soon as
after 3-4 weeks of hatching and you will soon get used to the trouble otherwise you will
end up with some shark in the house.

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(Lesson four)
MANAGEMENT OF FINGERLINGS

When fries are 6-8 weeks old and they measure in length to the finger
next to our thumb, they are called fingerlings. Some good news here
though........the older your fishes get, the lower their mortality rate all things
being equal, so if you can take your fries to the fingerlings stage, you are
gradually getting there. There are some basic principles in the management of
fingerlings that are similar to that of fries e.g. change water periodically sort
regularly, spread to reduce high density and to enhance quick growth.
However below are some of the points to take particularly note of regarding
the management of fingerlings?

Sort More Thoroughly

There is a need to sort more thoroughly as your fishes grow older because
the aggressive, stronger ones are capable of great danger if left unsorted out. This
is because unlike when they were fries, when you need to remove only the shoot
outs, from the fingerlings stage, you need to remove both the shoot outs and the
smallest ones who are the best aggressive and potential victims of the shoot outs.

Sorting:
A Necessary Factor
Sorting (as shown in the picture) is the periodic distribution of fishes in
different vats or ponds according to their sizes, in order to reduce losses resulting
from cannibalization of the weak by the stronger.
From the fingerlings stage onwards, your sorting objectives should be to leave
only fishes of the same size in the vat. Even though removing the smallest ones
may be an attractive thing at this stage, if you take the trouble and make it your
principle, it will help hasten the growth of the smallest ones who will eat much
more being free from the aggressive shooter who deny them the opportunity to
eat and you would have gotten used to sorting more thoroughly and regularly, a
habit you need to form to make profit from your farm as your fishes grow to table
size.

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Sorting fish to different sizes

(Lesson five)
Take Them Out, Make Them Strong
In our farm, after four weeks in the hatchery (which is indoor) we take the fries out so they
can begin to get used to the environment where they will grow to table size and the result has
been wonderful. We also make sure that they have more space and water outside than when
they were in the hatchery for instance we bring them from a vatmeasuring 12ft by 3ft by 1ft
and take them outside to a vat measuring 12ft by 4ft by 2ft and make sure their water is loaded
to 1 foot high minimum. The result has been a rapid growth even though we only change their
water twice a week maximum. Without doubt, the sun, rain and the space does them a lot of
good, so we recommend this method to you too but make sure that the water you are
transferring them to is water that has stayed 24 hours minimum in the water tan so the pH
would have normalized. Once again, we learn this from experience only. We really can't say if
it has any scientific explanation but we've seen that it works so you can give it a try.

Bringing Drugs to the Rescue

Anti-fungus and bacteria medicine like "Blagdon Anti Fungus and Bacteria" (made in U.K)
are very important to fish farming. If you notice that your fries are hanging i.e. positioning
themselves vertically in the pond, not eating and very weak or sluggish, then they may be
suffering from fungi or bacterial infection. It is then time to apply an anti-fungus or bacterial
medicine (like the Blagdon type) or “red and yellow capsule” following strictly the
recommended dosage.
Otherwise an overdose may lead to mass mortality of fries. Salt can also be brought to the
rescue on occasions where the above is not available. Just dissolve 3 hand full of salt in
water and spread in a 12ft by 4ft by 2ft vat proportionately and cut feeding by 50% - 60%
as all the infected fishes will not be able to eat anyway. If you notice the salt solution is
not helping matters, quickly go for the recommended anti fungus/bacterial medicine but
follow the recommended dosage strictly.
Right Transfer Method
The method you adopt in transferring your fishes particularly at the fries and fingerlings
stages is very important. This is because the fishes are still delicate at this stage (the younger
they are, the, more delicate they are) and any transfer method that leaves them out of their
natural habitat (water) for too long is not good for them. It can stress them and make them

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hang or actually die soon after, you take them to the new vat. In our farm we never leave
fishes out of water for longer than necessary. If we want to take them from vat A to vat B, we
get water charged with bio-disc in a big basin and using a sweep net, we pack the fishes from
vat A, clip the bottom of the sweep-net inside a small bowl with water and then immediately
empty the sweep-net inside the big basin of water by gently turning the net upside down with
our hand under it. That way they would hardly feel the stress of being transferred to the new
vat B not to talk of dying.
(Lesson six)

MANAGEMENT OF JUVENILES
Follow the basic principle:
From the length of your longest finger to 4.5 inches, your fishes qualify to be called Juveniles.
It may take about 10 to 12 weeks for the fishes to get to this stage and the basic principles of
fish management still applies i.e. sort periodically (say every 3 weeks), change water as soon as
it is getting murky or smelly or as soon as you notice the fishes hanging, feed regularly (not
less than 3 times a day if you are taking them to table size) and treat them like the beautiful
creatures that they are i.e. with lots of love and less anxiety over how slow you think they are
developing. If you follow the above basic principles and feed them with foreign or well
formulated local feed (we will come to this later) there is no reason why they won’t grow,
unless of course you bought pure runts as fingerlings, which takes us to the next topics:

IDENTIFYING RUNTS AND FINGERLINGS

SO YOU DON’T WASTE MONEY RAISING THEM TO JUVENILES

RUNT CATFISH: this are fishes that grows abnormally in the pond, that grow slow and give
different shapes that is different from other
.

Runt catfish Normal catfish

If you are buying fingerlings from another farm, seriously follow the guidelines below to
avoid buying runts as fingerlings so your investments does not go down the drain. Buy
Good Fingerlings get healthy Juvenile.
Buy your fingerlings only from well recommended farms, particularly those specialize in
the production of fingerlings and juveniles like us, Unlike those who combine selling
fingerlings and table sizes, specialists in the fingerlings and juveniles have no reason to keep
their shoot outs and sell only runts to you, so you stand a better chance with them. Some
people fertilize the eggs of female fishes that are runts because it’s cheaper to buy. We advise

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you also to avoid buying fingerlings from such farms even though some of them claim it does
not stop the fries from developing to big sizes, but in our opinion, like parent, like child, so
why take the risk?. Buy fingerlings or juveniles only from farms who use male and female
fishes equal to or above 1.5kg.
By the way from experience, just as shoot outs are not more than 10% - 15% of the entire lot,
pure runts are also not up to 10% - 15% of the lot. You therefore stand a chance of buying
pure runts only when you are buying the last batch of a particular lot, but this is quite difficult
to know as the pure runts may be mixed during sorting with batches from another spawning.
So how do you know runts?
From our experience, runts are like kwashiorkor children, with big head that is
disproportionate in size to their body. Runts are also like that, right from after the bony part
of the head, you will notice a body thinner and disproportionate in size to the head. Most
often they are not as active as their mates and where they are active, they are excessively
active. Also, generally speaking, the head of runts seems to be whitish in color.

Avoid Careless Mistakes

As once stated, the bigger your fish gets, the less danger of losing them. But there are
some silly mistakes that can be quite costly for you. Here are some of them:
• If the water in a pond looks clean and yet the fishes there are quite weak as evident by
their sluggish movement, quickly move them away completely to another pond and DO
NOT transfer other fishes to the same pond just because the water looks clean, otherwise
they will catch the same infection that has affected the first set.
• Just drain off the entire water in such a pond and wash thoroughly with a medicated soap
and then load up the pond again not forgetting to disinfect with salt.
• Do not use nets and bowls you used in transferring infected, weak and dying fishes to
move healthy fishes without washing it. They too may catch the infection.
• Do not sell weak and dying fishes to your customers. It will ruin the reputation of your
farm.
• Catfish farming is profitable, but like every other business, ithas it’s dos and don’ts,
follow it and you will get good result, ignore it and you will end up like very may people
who complain that the business is unprofitable.
• Always remain alert about the pH of your water. Measure it regularly if possible,
otherwise make sure never to load water directly from the well or borehole into your
ponds. Always let the water stay 1 or 2 days in the tank before loading into the ponds to
stabilize the pH.

(Lesson seven)

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MANAGEMENT OF TABLE SIZE

Table size catfish

Still Follow the Basic Principle

Change your water as soon as it is getting smelly, sort every 3 weeks, feed 3 times daily and
don’t overstock your pond. This is perhaps the shortest paragraph in this manual, yet for
those who wish to raise their fishes to table size, it should be the most important
paragraph.

Why Some Catfish Farmers Make Losses Simply by NOT FOLLOWING the above basic
principle. Quite number of cat- fish complain of not covering their costs not to talk of making
profit in this business and yet more people are joining th e business. Therefore those who are
making losses must be doing some things wrongly, and we can tell you from experience that if
you don’tfollow the basic principle in the above paragraph, you are guaranteed to make losses.
The following steps must be taken to rear your cat fish:
a. If you don’t change your water as at when due, the environment of the fishes will be too
polluted to encourage good feeding. The fishes urine, feeds and dissolved excess feed
pollute the water and even though they won’t die quickly being big fishes, theywill not eat
well because of the polluted environment.
b. So they won’t grow as they should, meaning you will keep feeding them for a longer
period, at a higher cost and without a corresponding increase in size. When you get tires
of wasting money on feed, you will want to sell and it will surely be at a loss because of
their poor weight.
c. If you also don’t sort regularly (even if you change water and feed as you should) only less
than half of your fishes will grow and be ready for sales when most should be ready. This
is because it is only the aggressive ones that will be eating most of the time and they are
usually less than half of the entire stock you have in a pond. But if you sort regularly,
then most of the fishes in ev ery pond will be of the same average size and they can
therefore compete favorably with each other for food.
d. If you don’t also feed your fishes regularly, they will not grow. Not only should you feed
regularly (at least 3times daily) you should also use the right formulation of local feed
formula to compound their feed, or if you have the resources, use foreign feed.

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e. Finally if you overstock your pond, fishes will not grow. We think the reason is simply
because the water also gets quickly polluted on account of the high density which in turn
rapidly depletes the dissolved oxygen in the water. Such an environment completely takes
away the appetite of the fishes. Interestingly, from our experience we also noticed that if a
pond is under stocked, the fishes will still not eat very well and therefore is that fishes
need a level of competition to drive their zeal to eat, a competition that can only be made
possible by a certain number of fishes in a particular size of pond.

(SESSION THREE)
(Lesson one)
HIGH FEEDING COST
ASSUAGING THE HEADACHE
Is there a solution to high feeding cost at this stage?
For that is the major headache you will be confronted with ass soon as fishes approach table
size. We believe there are solution. Certainly there are good local feeds and they are generally
cheaper than the foreign feeds. Find below our recommended local feed formula; but the
major headache is not really about composition, it is about the waste resulting from the fact
that local feeds sinks to the bottom of the pond unlike the foreign feeds which floats for a
while thus allowing you to know when the fishes are full so you can stop feeding them. With
local foods you can’t determine this because the feed sink almost immediately they are served,
so you keep serving not knowing actually when to stop.
These excess feed also pollute the water thus rendering their environment
unhealthy and should you be unfortunate to buy a poorly formulated one, the
water could get so polluted that they can all die before morning. So what is the
solution? There are two solutions.
1. One, use tarpaulin of white color for your vats and provide shade for it so algae
does not grow easily inside it as this will prevent you from seeing the bottom of
the vat when feeding the fishes. If you can see the bottom of the vat when
feeding, you can easily prevent wastage through excessive feeding, thereby
saving on feeding cost.
2. Two, you can adopt the SPOT FEEDING METHOD to reduce wastage anytime
you are feeding the fishes with local formulated feed. Without this knowledge which
is discussed in the next chapter you are bound to be wasteful when serving fishes
with the locally formulated fishes.

(Lesson two)
SPOT FEEDING
SPOT FEEDING: BEST SERVING METHOD FOR LOCAL FEEDS

Spot feeding is the correct method of feeding when using local feeds in other to minimize
wastage and achieve optimum result. By spot feeding we mean feeding the fishes at a
particular spot in the pond. This reduces losses resulting from feeds that sinks without the
fishes picking them because they (the fishes) will converge at one spot to pick the feeds before

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it gets to the bottom of the pond to dissolve. With this method you need to be more patient
when feeding the fishes because it takes a little longer to fully satisfy all the fishes since you
are feeding from one spot as against when you are feeding with foreign food which you can
spread all over the pond, you need to be a little patient because of the less aggressive fishes
who will only come to pick theirs when the aggressive ones have fully satisfied themselv es…..
And this may take some time depending on the number of the fishes in your pond….if you hee
hurriedly and leave, a great percentage of fishes would feed less and therefore grow slowly.

(Lesson three)
Changing From Foreign To Local Feeds
When your fishes have gotten used to foreign feeds and you wish to change to local feeds, you
need to let them get really hungry before they can accept the new local feed from you. Some
farmers keep the starved, they keep them starved for 2 days and then introduce the local feed.
Some mix the local and foreign feed together and serve the fishes without starving them at all,
but all from our experience the former method seems to work faster and better.
Compounding a Good Local Feed
The following combination is a good local feed to give your fishes as soon as they can pick size
2mm of local feed. Assuming you are compounding a 50kg local feed, the following
combination is good and recommendable. If you are in Lagos, you can get all these materials
at the Oko-Oba fish feed market. Ensure that the combinations are given to you as stated
below, then grind and pelletize to the sizes your fishes can pick i.e. 2mm, 4mm, 6mm or 8mm.

Maize 5kg
Indomie or whole wheat 6.25Kg
Soya Bean Meal 7.5kg
Full Fat Soya 5kg
Groundnut Cake 3.75kg
Fish Meal (72% concentrate) 15kg
Blood Meal 1.25kg
Fish Meal (65% concentrate) 2.5kg
Wheat Offals 2.5kg
Fish Premix 2.5kg
Di-calcium Phosphate 0.625kg
Lysine 0.05%
Methionine 0.05kg
Vitamin C 0.1kg
Salt 0.15kg

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(SESSION FOUR)
MARKETING YOUR FISHES

It is natural to be anxious about the demand for your products or services before you
invest your hard-earned or borrowed money in any business and catfish farming is in
exception to this anxiety. Fortunately it is generally known that there is high demand for
catfish in Nigeria now and for the future. 10 years ago, catfish farming was not as popular as it
is now in Nigeria and in spite of the phenomenal growth, the sector keeps expanding and it
will continue to expand for decades to come because we are still far from meeting the demand
for fish consumption in Nigeria, not to talk of the potentials for exportation which is yet to
take off in any appreciable quantity. Suffice to say however that rumors of farmers exporting
fingerlings and smoked fishes are already circulating in the industry.
To make things easy for new comers however, we have set up a website names
www.fishfarmersmeetbuyers.com, Nigeria’s first online Business directory for fish farmers,
fish buyers, fish consultants, brood stocks, fingerlings and juvenile producers, dealers in fish
farming, etc. where many fish farmers and fish buyers are already registered nationwide. The
database is rich and growing daily so you are advised to also register your business on this
website so buyers of your product can easily locate you and you can easily locate them.

(SESSION FIVE)
Removing the Pituitary Gland from the Female Catfish
Pituitary gland is the gland removed from the male fish to fasten the maturity of the female
fish eggs for spawning, this is used in place of ovaprim, So many fish farmers in Nigeria find it
very difficult to extract the pituitary gland from the female ca tfish which make most of themgo
for ovaprim, yes it is somehow technical but following the normal processes it is very easy to
extract, this session is going to explain the removal of the pituitary and save you from
spending money on ovaprim or any industrial chemical used for spawning.

ITEMS FOR THE OPERATION

1. Chisel
2. Sharp knife
3. Nail picker
4. Chopping board
5. Small mortal
6. Saline water (industrial)
7. Syringe and needle

THE TECHNIQUES AND PROCESS

STEP1: Bring out your male catfish, place it on the chopping board. Cut off the
neck at the end of the stronger part of the head with knife as shown below:

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Cutting the male fish head

Step 2: stand the head of the fish and cut from open of the mouth to the bottom of the
head as shown below.

Dividing the head of the fish

Step 3: use your chisel to remove the bone located in the stronger part of the head, it
hard to remove so you have to take your time.

Step 4: raise the bone up after cutting, there u see the pituitary gland, it is whitish in, very
small and in a Removing
duct form,ofsee
thethe
bony part below.
picture of the skull

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Step 5: use your picker to pick out the pituitary gland carefully and drop it inside the
small bow

Picking the pituitary gland

Step 6: putting the pituitary gland into the bowl for processing see picture below.

DropPROCESSING THEin
the pituitary gland PITUITARY
to the bowlGLAND
Haven’t drop the pituitary gland into the small bowl for processing, follow the
following steps to process it.
• Use your syringe to draw 15-20ml of readymade saline water
• Use the small mortal to grind the saline water and the pituitarygland together to
form liquid solution.

Grinding the solution

•
Haven’t grind the solution, bring out your syringe and draw out the solution.

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Drawing out the solution

• Avoid space inside the syringe, so make sure you set it very well.

Setting the syringe

• You can now inject 5ml of the solution into the female fish and
use your finger to rub the injected spot.

Injecting the fish rubbing the spot

SESSION SIX
Identifying ml (dosage) from Syringe
• To calculate 1ml dosage from the syringe

1ml dosage

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• To calculate 2ml dosage from the syringe

2ml dosage

3ml dosage

5ml dosage

BIODISC AND IT FUNCTION TO FISH FARMING

Bio-disc is an object used in charging water, prevents germs and bacterial from water, this
object has so many functions in different aspect of life intake activities but we will only discuss
the importance of it to live stocks (catfish).
• Use bio-disc to charge the water you want to use for spawning Use it for your brood
stock water after injecting.
•Use it to raise your fries, fingerlings and juveniles

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HOW TO USE IT
• Put it in a filter and tie it to the tap that run to your vat
or pond, as the water flow through the filter the water will be
charging, prevent bacterial and provides energy for the
livestock.

HOW TO PRODUCE KAKABAN

Get a white sack, cut off the bottom with scissors or blade or sharp knife, also cut the side,
and then start losing.

CONTACTS
• You can call me to solve any problem in your farm
• You can call us if you need fingerlings, juvenile, table size and also brood stock for hatchery.
• We also visit farm to carry out hatching in any regional part of the country.

Phone number: 08024535219, 08163404468 (whatapp)

Facebook: Aderemi Taiwo Teduct
Email: [email protected]

BEST OF LUCK IN YOUR FISHING

BUISINESS CAREER

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