It takes a certain amount of time from fry to mature catfish, which is affected by feed and environment. The high-quality floating fish feed allows farmers to grow healthy catfish for high profits.
Fingerlings are fishes that are after birth about 1 week to about 3 weeks old, while juveniles are 4 weeks to about 6 weeks after birth. Juveniles should be about 8 cm in length and 2 grams in weight.There is a large market for fingerlings and juveniles, and farmers manually mate the male and female broodstock and sell the fingerlings and juveniles to other farmers.Whether a beginner or an experienced fish farmers only needs four to six weeks or a maximum of two months to get his juveniles big enough to sell.
Fish farmers usually raise catfish to 0.8kg-1kg or more before selling them. But some fish farmers will raise the fish to 300 grams to 500 grams and sell it in smoked form. This smoked grilled fish is very popular in the local market. They don’t want their catfish to be too big because the heat doesn’t get into the fish and it doesn’t dry out well, resulting in a stale taste and not easy to store. Therefore, farmers can sell juvenile fish after three months
It is the raising of catfish from fingerlings to an average weight size of 500–700g, usually from 4 to 5 months from fingerlings. The time it takes for fingerlings to reach table size (market size) depends on your feeding, rearing and all other management procedures.With proper management, your fish should be ready to serve in four months. At the same time, it also depends on the weight you are targeting the fish. If they eat well, they should average 1kg in 5 months. Although fish growth depends on the quality and quantity of feed available, environmental factors, etc., the growth rate of different fish is determined.Some fish grow large over the years, while others are only a few millimeters in size and reach their maximum size within days or weeks.Therefore, growth is a genetic and hereditary factor. In aquaculture or fish farming, this factor can be advantageously used to produce fast growing fish progeny through crossbreeding and selective breeding.
Some people don’t like to buy small fish because most catfish are under 1kg and they want their fish to weigh 2 or 3kg or more, the bigger the better. This takes about eight to nine months to breed.