Bengal Catfish (Mystus gulio) is a commercially important indigenous fish species of the Sundarban delta locally known as ‘Nona Tengra’. The fish tolerates wide range of salinity and has a high market demand. In order to promote its farming and diversified aquaculture, Kakdwip Research Centre (KRC) of ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (ICAR-CIBA) has developed a complete package of practices comprising seed production and grow-out culture in brackishwaters.
Seed production technology package is a homestead modular system comprises of broodstock development, maturity assessment, induction of spawning, incubation and hatching of eggs, and larval rearing in brackishwater environment. The cost of production of a 30-days old seed is ₹0.30 and its sale price is ₹1, which is economically viable. Department of Fisheries, Government of Andhra Pradesh and small and marginal farmers from West Bengal adopted this viable technology.
Availability of hatchery produced seed paved its grow-out farming. The KRC of ICAR-CIBA has successfully demonstrated the semi-intensive farming of M.gulio in brackishwater ponds with hatchery produced seeds for the first time. Sixty-days old hatchery produced seeds (average total length: 40.15 mm; average total weight: 0.85g) were stocked at two different stocking densities of 10 and 20 fish fries/ m-2 and fed with formulated feed developed by KRC of CIBA @ 8-5% of biomass. The harvest was done on 30th June, 2022 after eight months rearing (November, 2021 to June, 2022), the fish attained the average size of 35 and 30 g with an average production of 1.5 to 3.0 t per ha respectively. The cost of production was around ₹90-120 kg-1 and the farm gate market price was ₹250-300 kg-1, which indicates high profitability. Efficient farm management will further improve the production, employment generation and nutritional security of small and marginal farmers of the coastal states like West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh where this species is naturally available.
