Detailed Explanation of the Domestication Method for Large-Size Yellow Catfish Fry

When the pond has abundant natural live food, the yellow catfish will not readily eat artificial feed. Before feeding artificial feed, water quality must be kept good, and natural live food in the pond (especially animal food) should be very scarce. For ponds with poor water quality, treat the pond water by splashing water quality improvers, injecting new water, and other methods. For ponds with abundant natural live food, use chemical methods (broadcasting insecticide) to kill the live food. For ponds where fish disease has occurred, the disease should be brought under control first.

1. Water quality treatment: Increase water transparency, keeping transparency at around 30cm; reduce ammonia nitrogen and nitrite; for ponds with high pH, the pond water pH should also be lowered.

2. Reduce the total amount of animal food in the water: During the fry stage of yellow catfish, methods such as splashing soybean milk and applying biological fertilizers are usually used to cultivate animal food. Before food habit domestication of yellow catfish, these operations must be stopped to reduce the total amount of animal food in the pond. For ponds with relatively abundant animal food, necessary measures should be taken to kill the food animals.

Specific method: At the downwind spot where zooplankton gather, covering 1/5 to 1/3 of the pond area, splash trichlorfon crystals so that the concentration reaches 0.01 to 0.02ppm.

To domesticate the food habit of yellow catfish, grasp the best timing and choose the appropriate size: begin artificial domestication when the yellow catfish being cultivated in the pond reach about 3 cm. To domesticate yellow catfish, also prepare artificial feed of a certain particle size according to the size of the yellow catfish. Domestication requires proper methods and steps, and one must not rush for quick results.

1. Attracting fish with flowing water: For 1 week before feeding, use a water pump to flush water twice a day, morning and evening, for 2 to 3 hours each time. When flushing water, keep the outlet as level as possible with the pond surface; the water output depends on the pond area. Yellow catfish have the habit of swimming against the current; the main purpose of flushing water is to gather the yellow catfish together, making future domestication easier. During the fry stage, yellow catfish generally gather in groups near the pond edge, so the pump outlet should be as close to the pond edge as possible to achieve the best fish-gathering effect.

2. Installation of the feeding site and feeder: Set up a round or square feeding site where the fish gather at the pump outlet. Use four bamboo poles with a diameter of 3 to 4cm (each 3 to 4m long) to connect into a square enclosure. Place the enclosure in the pond, positioning it to match the feeding area of the feeder, then fix it with anchors or stakes. The feeding site can also be made from PVC pipes or 40-mesh netting cut into narrow strips.

3. Feeding under starvation: Begin manually scattering an appropriate amount of artificial feed into the feeding site 2 to 3 hours after flushing water, and turn off the water pump before feeding. The feed particle size should not be too large, usually below 1mm. If suitable particle sizes are unavailable, larger-particle feed can be soaked in an appropriate amount of water and then crushed.

4. Feeding time: Base it on after sunset on sunny days and before sunrise in the morning, feeding twice a day for about 30 minutes each time. The feeding amount depends on the size of the fish school, and the feed must be thrown within the feeding site. Generally, after 3 to 5 days of domestication, yellow catfish can be seen feeding in the mid-water layer. After one week, yellow catfish can be seen competing for food at the water surface, at which point a feeder can be used instead.