Poor Catfish Growth: Reasons your catfish is not growing fast

Poor growth affects the productivity of catfish farmers. Catfish farming is a business and for every business, time is of the essence, for grow-out farmers in the catfish farming business your fish is expected to get to table size and ready for harvest in 4 months and 2 weeks from fingerlings but most times this is not the case. If you are a catfish farmer, you might probably have experience delays in growth or heard farmers complain about their catfish not growing fast as expected.

So, I will be highlighting some of the reasons for the poor catfish growth.

1. Buying of bad SEEDS or RUNTS:

   The stage of the purchase of the seeds (fingerlings or juveniles) is very important because it will determine the outcome you will get after 4 months of rearing. When buying fingerlings or juveniles ensure you buy from a sincere and trusted breeder, and as much as possible avoid middlemen most of them are not sincere (don’t get me wrong there are very good middlemen that supply very good seed). The broodstock used for the hatchery is also a determining factor on how the fish will turn out, you can’t buy a fish that the parent broodstock is dwarfed and expect very big fish or even disease-infected fish. If you get the first shooters from any production you will enjoy it because of growth rate will be very fast and also you get an almost even size.

2. Pond size/Stocking capacity: It’s very important that you understand how to calculate the volume of water in your pond, this will inform you of the number of catfish to stock in a particular pond so you end up overstocking the pond and affecting the growth rate. You can learn this by following the guide in this video: https://youtu.be/00jL7Ol0ceY  Don’t just pack fish and stock inside a container and there is no space for the fish to swim. Their growth will be very limited. Also, as the catfish grows and increase in size you should sort and put it in bigger ponds.

3. Quality of water:

   There are different water parameters that should be considered these include; Temperature, pH, Oxygen level, Nitrate, Total Dissolved Solid, and some others. Fish growth is limited in water pH less than 6.5, the catfish will have a very slow pace, the more acidic the water gets can result in mortality in the pond. the desirable pH level for fish culture is 6.5 to 8.7 for growth production. Water quality affects most farmers because they hardly run tests on their water. You can get the digital meter or the manual test kit and run a test on your water or contact an expert to assist.

4. Feed Quality

   CATFISH ARE WHAT THEY EAT.

   This has to do both with the quantity and quality of the feed being administered to them. Most farmers tend to give the wrong sizes of feed and also due to the high cost of feeds people tend to use cheaper feed (feeding low-quality feeds is not a strategy for saving cost) which does not have good nutritional contents and poor feed conversion ratio (FCR). If you’re careful to observe numbers 1 -3 and you’re not feeding them well, you are set to get a very bad outcome. Use quality feeds, give appropriate feed sizes, and don’t underfeed your fish in a bid to save cost it’s a trap. Ensure the person feeding understands the techniques involved in feeding to feed adequately.

Conclusion

Lack of technical know-how can also be a major factor challenge in catfish farming, we offer training services and mentorship sessions for new and existing farmers, you can reach out to us:

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