What feed do you give mandarin fish? In farming, it is mainly based on forage fish

AbstractMandarin fish farming is generally based mainly on forage fish. Early-stage forage fish: milkfish, Thai milkfish, crucian carp, silver carp, bighead carp, mud carp and common carp, etc. Mid-stage forage fish: fry of milkfish, mud carp and Thai milkfish, etc. Late-stage forage fish: because winter temperatures are low, you can farm some overwintering forage fish such as silver carp, bighead carp and crucian carp, etc.

What feed to give mandarin fish in farming

1. Early-stage forage fish: stock about 2 million fry of silver carp, bighead carp, Thai milkfish, crucian carp, mud carp, milkfish and so on in the mandarin fish pond; these are the early feed for mandarin fish, and coarse feed such as wheat bran and peanut bran can also be added. After about 20 days, when the forage fish have grown to about 2.5cm, you can use 0.7ppm copper sulfate and 0.5ppm strong chlorine for disinfection and insect removal, then stock mandarin fish fry of about 3 cm.

2. Mid-stage forage fish: you can specially prepare several fish ponds to cultivate fry of bighead carp, crucian carp, silver carp and so on, and you can also polyculture 300,000 fry of milkfish, mud carp, Thai milkfish and so on per mu in home fish ponds as mid-stage forage fish for mandarin fish.

3. Late-stage forage fish: besides farming them yourself, you can also buy forage fish from outside. The late stage of farming generally enters winter; winter temperatures are relatively low, and forage fish of the mud carp type are easily killed by freezing, so we should prepare some overwintering forage fish in advance, such as silver carp, bighead carp, crucian carp and so on.

Farming conditions for mandarin fish

To farm mandarin fish you need to build a farming pond, which requires a sandy bottom, about 15cm of silt, an area of about 5 mu, a water depth of more than 1.5m, good drainage and irrigation conditions, unpolluted water quality, ideally with flowing live water, and also a pond with a small amount of submerged aquatic plants.

A dedicated mandarin fish pond should not be stocked at too high a density, as this easily affects water quality. Therefore the drainage and irrigation conditions of the pond must be good, with regular water changes, keeping the dissolved oxygen in the pond water at a minimum of 4 mg per liter or more; depending on the specific situation, aerators can be installed and regular disinfection carried out, etc.

How to cultivate forage fish

Choose varieties such as silver carp and crucian carp as forage fish, which can improve the palatability and economic value of mandarin fish. The forage fish farming area is about 4 times that of the mandarin fish pond, and the stocking density is 300,000-500,000 per mu.

After the fry are stocked, do not feed them immediately; you can wait until the fry are foraging around the pond or the number of zooplankton decreases before feeding them feed. In the early stage of cultivation, the feed should be supplied in time; in the later stage, it needs to be controlled according to their size, keeping the forage fish length at about 4cm.

You can also polyculture some fast-breeding forage fish in the mandarin fish pond as live feed, using a fine net to divide the fish pond into two halves, farming mandarin fish on one side and forage fish on the other; the fast-breeding young fish can pass through the fine net and become food for the mandarin fish.