Check out How to Care for Baby Catfish Properly and Correctly!

Catfish is a type of fish that can live in high densities, so catfish farming will be very profitable if done intensively.

Selain itu, keunggulan dari budidaya ikan lele adalah Bapak/Ibu dapat meraih keuntungan yang sangat besar. Budidaya ikan lele juga dapat dilakukan dengan lahan yang tidak cukup besar bahkan dapat dilakukan dengan menggunakan media terpal.

In cultivating catfish, you must be looking for ways to make the catfish seeds grow big quickly. The main key to the catfish business is that cultivators must be good at caring for catfish seeds. However, there are still many mistakes in carrying out its maintenance.

If you can do maintenance properly and correctly, catfish farming can run with limited capital but a high success rate.

Therefore, this article will provide effective ways to care for baby fish in order to get ideal and uniform body weight.

Characteristics of Healthy Newly Hatched Catfish

There are several criteria that indicate catfish hatch in a healthy condition. The following is a complete explanation.

1. Movement of Little Catfish 

Agile and agile movements are one of the characteristics that catfish fry are healthy. Such seeds can be cultivated. You can confirm this by catching a baby catfish and watching its movements. If the seeds swim agile and agile, then these seeds are of good quality.

2. Condition and Physical Form of the Baby Catfish

The health of newly hatched catfish chicks can be seen by paying attention to their condition and physical shape. You need to pay attention to the balance and completeness of the baby catfish organs. The morphology of the head and body of catfish seeds must be balanced and their limbs must also be complete.

3. Size of Little Catfish

In addition to physical condition and shape, uniform size of catfish is also a characteristic of healthy catfish fry. Uniform seed size indicates that newly hatched catfish are in good health. With a uniform seed size, you can avoid losses due to cannibalism.

Those are the characteristics of newly hatched catfish in good health. When the baby catfish reaches 4-6 cm in size, the growth of the baby catfish will be fast and uniform. However, you need to pay attention to sufficient feed supplies so that the baby catfish grow healthily and evenly.

How to Take Care of Newly Hatched Catfish

Catfish eggs will hatch around 30-36 hours after fertilization at 23-24℃. Post-hatching larvae maintenance is carried out in hatching containers that are flowing with water and equipped with aeration that is not too tight so that the larvae do not stir up.

The maintenance of the larvae in the container is carried out for 4-5 days without feeding, because the larvae at that time still use the egg yolk in their body as a food source.

By the 5th day and so on, the yolk in the larvae has run out. Further maintenance is carried out after entering the age of 5-21 days by providing feed in the form of finely chopped silk worms first because the size of the fish's mouth opening is still small. Giving silk worms until the larvae are 12 days old.

Here's how to raise baby catfish that are good and right:

1. Maintain Pool Water Quality

As previously mentioned, you must ensure that the pH of catfish pond water is appropriate and odorless. Pool water must always be clean so that the baby catfish are not easily stressed and die.

2. Choosing a Quality Parent Catfish

You need to choose a parent catfish that is old enough and healthy. You need to know the appropriate criteria for catfish broodstock. The male parent can be spawned when it is more than 10 months old and the female parent is more than 1 year old.

3. Maintain Oxygen Levels

Try to keep the oxygen level in the pool sufficient. What you have to do is provide a stream of water in the hatchery pond so that oxygen levels are met. Provide a constant flow of clean water in the catfish pond with strong water pressure.

Causes of Baby Catfish Die After Hatching

After you know how to care for catfish babies, do you know what causes catfish babies to die after hatching? The following are the reasons why baby catfish die after hatching:

1. Pool Water Quality is Not Good

Poor pond water quality conditions are not suitable for the growth of catfish fry. Although adult catfish can live in poor water conditions, the young catfish cannot survive if the pond water quality is poor. 

You have to maintain the quality of the water, the pH of the pond needed by catfish is 7-8. Pond water that smells and contains ammonia can cause baby catfish to die after hatching. 

2. The mother fish is of less quality 

The male and female parents who were spawned were still very young. If you spawn broodstock that are not old enough, it will produce catfish that are of poor quality and allow for death after the eggs hatch.

3. Low Oxygen Content

The oxygen content in the catfish pond is low. This can interfere with the breathing of catfish children, causing death after hatching.