Method of Shing and Magur fish Culture

Introduction 

There is slight resemblance of body characteristic between shing and magur fish. Their body is long, ventral side cylindrical, dorsal side flattened and scales less, upper and lower side of head is flattened. Four pair�s antenna in head and one pair spines are present in both sides of head. But shing fish is smaller than magur fish in size and head is comparatively thin. Spines of both sides are toxic in shing fish and that�s why if stung by spine of shing fish, much pain is felt in affected area. The color of shing fish is brownish red in younger stage and grayish black in adult stage. On the other hand, the color of magur fish is dark brown in younger stage and grayish brown in adult stage. A special characteristic of shing and magur is that they have an extra respiratory system except gill and by which they can receive oxygen directly from air. So, they can survive long time in water with less oxygen and even in without water. That�s why shing and magur fish are called geol fish. Shing and magur fish belong to omnivorous. They stay at bottom of the water body and eat aquatic animals and decomposed organic wastes. They breed one time a year and their breeding season is May to September. But highest breeding is obtained at June-July.

Advantages of culture of shing and magur fish

1. There are more demand of shing and magur in the market and that�s why more profit can be obtained by their culture.
2. Method of culture is easy. They can be cultured in any types of water body even in water reservoir and cage.
3. They can survive in adverse environment such as less oxygen, high temperature of water, even in polluted water.
4. They can be cultured in less water and with more density.
5. Less affected by disease and high tolerant.
6. They can be marketed as live condition as they can survive in less water and even in without water.
7. If caring properly, fishes can be marketed early (6-8 months).
8. Along with individual culture, they can also be cultured with carp fish, tilapia fish etc. as mixed culture.

Nutritional Importance of Shing and Magur:

Nutritional value of shing and magur is more than that of many large species of fish. They have much quantity of iron suitable for body. They contain more protein and low fat. So, these are easily digestible. These fishes are more popular as diet for rapid development of health at and after the time of sickness. Shing and magur fish help to prevent anaemia and to increase body energy.

Selection and Preparation of Pond for Culture:

The pond should be 1-1.5 metre deep for culturing of shing and magur. It should be better if the pond area is 10 to 30 decimal. If the bank of the selected pond is damaged, it has to be repaired before culture. Water hyacinth with other aquatic weeds of the pond should be removed out. Big trees should not be available on the bank of the pond. Predator and unnecessary fishes in pond should be removed out. This can be done by drying pond, repeatedly netting or rotenon applied in the pond water. It is better to prepare pond by drying it at winter when the pond contains less water. After drying pond, lime, cow dung or poultry faeces, urea, TSP fertilizer should be applied properly at required level per decimal. If water remains in the pond, lime and fertilizer have to be applied in the water.

Making Fence by Net

During preparation of pond for culturing shing and magur, it is an important work to make a fence or net with 30 cm height around the pond. The advantage of fence is that fish cannot go outside of the pond during rainfall. Specially, magur fish often go outside of the pond by their body stretching during slight rainfall or flood. On the other hand, enemies of fishes like snakes, frogs cannot enter into the pond due to making fence. All around the bank of the pond should be protected by placing nylon net with the help of poles. Lower part of the net should be attached with soil by inserting them slightly into the soil so that no gap remains between the net and soil. This work should be performed immediately after drying the pond. Because, harmful animals like frogs, snakes are not available in pond at dried condition. The animals remain in the pond when it contains water and they are arrested if making fence. In that case, action is to be taken for killing them into the pond by koach or bait.

Fry stocking

150-200 fries of magur fish should be stocked for per decimal after 5-7 days of pond preparation. As the shing fish is smaller in size, more fries like 300-400 can be stocked. 3-4 silver carp fishes can be released in the pond so that they can eat excessively producing phytoplankton and keep environment good. If the water can be altered, 250-300 magur fries and 400-450 shing fries can be stocked per decimal. If culturing shing/magur with carp or rui fish as mixed culture, 50 shing/magur fries and 40 rui fries can be stocked per decimal. Standard time for releasing fish is morning or afternoon (cool weather). Fries cannot be stocked at sunny noon or cloudy day. Before releasing fry in the pond, they should be purified with potash or salt mixed water and adjusted with pond water. 

Subsequent Management of Stocking

A. Feeding management

Supplementary feed should be provided to shing and magur. Various feed ingredients for making supplementary feed and their mixing rate are given below ----

Ingredients for supplementary feed for shing and magur and their mixing rate

Feed ingredients	Mixing rate (%)
	Sample-1	Sample-2
Fish meal	20	20
Meat and bone meal	25	---
Sesame oil cake	10	20
Rice polish	25	30
Wheat bran	15	12
Flour/molasses	4	5
Vitamin mineral premix	1	1gm/kg
Soybean meal	---	8
Broken corn	---	5

Level of feed supply for shing/magur according to their body weight is given below

Average weight of fish (gm)	Daily feed requirement (%)
1-3	15-20
4-10	12-15
11-50	8-10
51-100	5-7
>101	3-5

B. Feed supply method: 

Daily feed has to be divided into two groups and supplied in two times (morning and afternoon). Small balls should be made by mixing feed with slight water and provided on the tray placing under the water in some specific places of the pond. Mustard oil cake should be soaked in water 24 hours before feed preparation. Commercial feed from market can also be provided to fish. The price of this feed is higher than homemade feed.

Health Management

Fish should be checked frequently by netting whether they grow regularly or not and affected with diseases or not. Generally, no disease is found in shing and magur. But sometimes, ulcer, tail and fin rot and edema found in winter. Their management system is given below:

Ulcer: The disease is mainly caused by a fungus named aphanomyces invadans. It causes ulcer in muscle. If 1kg lime and 1kg salt per decimal applied in water with 1-1.5 meter deep in pond, affected fish may be recovered within two weeks. If provided lime and salt at the same level in early winter as advance prevention management, fish can be kept free from diseases in winter.

Tail and Fin Rot: The disease is caused by aeromonads and myxobacter types bacteria. Affected fish should be washed out for 3-5 minutes with water mixing with potassium permanganate at 5 mg/litre of water. Fertilizer apply in the pond should be stopped. 1 kg lime per decimal can be applied in the pond.

Edema: It is a bacterial disease. It causes swelling to belly. Fish moves imbalanced way and finally die. Water is removed out by an empty syringe from the belly of affected fish. Mixing of 200mg chloramphenicol powder with 1 kg feed should be supplied. 1 kg lime per decimal can be applied in affected pond.

Fish Collection

If rearing properly, shing and magur fish may be suitable for marketing after 7-10 months. In that time, average body weight of shing and magur are 100-125g and 120-140g, respectively. Most of the fishes are to be caught out by netting. Pond should be dried out to collect all fishes.