Ecological Loach Farming Model and Key Technical Points

       In recent years, loach has become a prized delicacy on ordinary people's dining tables. Because loach has strong adaptability to the environment, is easy to breed and farm, and involves low production costs and high economic returns, artificial loach farming has been increasingly favored by farmers. In the process of loach farming, the stocking density should be reasonable, feeding and fertilization should be scientific, new water should be added frequently to keep the water quality fresh, and attention should be paid to disease prevention and control; only then can healthy growth be promoted and good economic returns achieved.

1. Creating the farming environment. Loach does not have high requirements for the farming environment; rice paddies, courtyard cement ponds, sheltered and sun-facing ponds near water sources, and shallow ponds are all suitable. Before releasing the fry, the farming pond must be thoroughly renovated and disinfected. Because loach likes to burrow into holes and escape, the embankments around the farming waters should be wide and solid, with no holes, and the inlet and outlet should be fitted with escape-proof nets to prevent the loach from escaping. At the same time, some aquatic plants (water weeds) should also be planted along the pond edge to create a shaded, comfortable and quiet living environment for the loach; the roots of aquatic plants provide conditions for the reproduction of some benthic organisms and also provide natural feed for the loach.

2. Ensuring the quality of the released fry. Choose loach fry that are strong in constitution, lively in swimming, smooth and glossy in body surface, free of injury and disease, and uniform in size. Before release, they should be soaked in 20-30 g/L salt water for about 10 minutes to kill pathogens on the body surface. Release should be carried out on a sunny morning or afternoon; fry should not be released when it is windy, raining, under low air pressure, or in cold weather.

3. Reasonable stocking density. The stocking density should be determined according to the conditions of the farming waters. For pond farming, generally 100-150 summer fry of 3-4 cm in body length are stocked per square meter, and 50-80 fry of more than 5 cm in body length can be stocked per square meter; for rice paddy farming, generally about 80 kg of small loach weighing 2-5 g each are stocked per mu, or about 20,000 loach of more than 10 cm are stocked per mu. When farming conditions are good and live feed is abundant, the stocking amount can be appropriately increased; otherwise, it should be appropriately reduced.

4. Feed and feeding. Loach is an omnivorous freshwater fish and under natural conditions likes to eat water fleas, tubifex and other plankton. During the farming process, the artificially fed feed should be palatable and fresh. During feeding, care should be taken that the feed varieties cannot be changed frequently, otherwise it will cause a periodic decrease in the loach's feed intake and affect the growth rate. In addition, loach is greedy for food; when feeding animal-based feed, the loach should not be allowed to eat too much, otherwise it will affect intestinal respiration and produce toxic gases that cause death. When the water temperature is higher than 30°C or lower than 15°C, feeding can be stopped.

5. Water quality management. The pond water should preferably be yellow-green, the transparency should preferably be 20-25 cm, and the pH should be neutral or weakly acidic. When the water color turns tea-brown or dark brown, or when the dissolved oxygen content in the water is below 2 mg/L, new water should be added in time. Beneficial microbial preparations should be used frequently. Keep the water quality in a state of fertility, vitality, tenderness and freshness.

6. Disease prevention and control. In farming work, prevention should be the main approach, combining prevention and treatment. Every half month, splash bleaching powder to disinfect once, making the pond water concentration 1 ppm, or use 10-15 kg of quicklime per mu at 1 m water depth, mixed with water and splashed, to regulate water quality. During the high-temperature growth period in summer and autumn, frequently add new water and discharge old water, adding 20-30 cm of new water each time, to keep the water quality fresh and fertile and relatively stable, prevent diseases, and favor growth.

7. Capture and marketing. Capture from the end of the same year to before May of the following year, adopting the method of catching the large and leaving the small, with the marketing size at 70-90 fish per kg. Fishing methods: mainly seine netting, supplemented by ground cage nets. Finally, carry out dry pond harvesting.