How to prevent fish fingerling death & improve their adaptability

Fol­low­ing simple de­liv­ery pro­ced­ures after buy­ing fin­ger­lings may re­duce death of the new stock while in­creas­ing their ad­apt­ab­il­ity for ma­tur­ity within the re­quired six months.

Jared Mokaya, a Kenya Pris­ons Ser­vice of­ficer in charge of fish farm­ing at the ser­vice’s Na­k­uru sta­tion said stressed fin­ger­lings can delay to ma­ture for weeks or a month, yet is can be con­trolled.

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A farmer must in­form the fin­ger­ing hatch­ery of plans of col­lect­ing the stock a day to doing so. This al­lows the hatch­ery to re­duce the feeds given to the fin­ger­lings.

“Starving the fish for a day be­fore trans­port­a­tion to the fish pond re­duces the amount of waste pro­duced. Ac­cu­mu­la­tion of waste can be toxic to the del­ic­ate stock while in the en­closed trans­port­a­tion bags,” the of­ficer said.

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When fin­ger­lings are trans­por­ted, they are put in spe­cial bags with oxy­gen-en­riched water.

At the same time, it is wrong for the famer to im­me­di­ately open the bag and re­move the fish with bare hands. They are sup­posed to move out on their own into the new en­vir­on­ment.

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The fin­ger­lings, to­gether with the con­tainer must be placed on the water of the new pond for between 20 and 30 minutes. This al­lows for the water in the bag to as­sume tem­per­at­ures of the sur­round­ing. The bag is them opened care­fully opened for the fish to flow into the new home, Mokaya said.

“Fol­low­ing the brief mo­ment of ac­cli­mat­iz­a­tion, the young ones start feed­ing im­me­di­ately. Water tem­per­at­ure shock ef­fects are also min­imal,” he said.

Mokaya is a Na­k­uru Prison Ser­vice aquacul­ture ex­pert, who also helps farm­ers set up in­teg­rated back­yard fish­ponds.

Mokaya can be reached on +254775702877 or +254724469499