What are the technical key points for small-scale rice field eel (Monopterus albus) farming in a courtyard?
I. Construction of rice field eel farming facilities
1. Site selection: choose an open space in front of or behind the house, enclose a yard and build eel ponds, using groundwater or tap water as the farming water source.
2. Eel pond construction: the walls are built with single bricks. Generally each eel pond has an area of 2 sq m (1 m wide, 2 m long). The inner and outer walls and the bottom are plastered with cement. The wall height is 50 cm, and the top of the wall is made into a T shape to prevent escape. At 30 cm from the pond bottom on the wall, install a plastic-rubber pipe with a diameter of 10 cm for overflow. The pond bottom must have a certain slope toward the drainage outlet, with the standard being that it can drain all the water in the pond, and the drainage outlet is connected to the main drainage ditch. The wall surface below 20 cm from the pond bottom and the pond bottom surface are all covered with ceramic tiles. The overflow outlet and drainage outlet are fitted with iron wire anti-escape mesh covers, and when not in use they are tightly plugged with wooden stoppers.
3. Water storage tank: according to the ratio of 1.5 cubic m of water storage tank for every 10 sq m of eel pond, build the water storage tank with red bricks, and plaster all the flat corners inside and outside the walls and the tank bottom with cement. Install the outlet pipe at the bottom of the tank. At the same time, the tank bottom surface must have a certain slope, and the sewage discharge outlet should be cleaned regularly at set times; both the outlet and the sewage discharge outlet are controlled by valves. The water storage tank is required not to seep or leak water, ensuring the safety of water supply. The bottom plane of the water storage tank should be more than 20 cm higher than the bottom plane of the farming pond.
II. Five key points of courtyard rice field eel farming technology
1. Eel pond preparation: after the eel pond is built, first fill it with water and soak for 10 days, then use 0.2 kg of quicklime per sq m to make limewater to disinfect the pond mouth and the surrounding environment. One month before releasing the seedlings, add water to the pond to a depth of 20 cm and soak the ceramic tiles, so that the ceramic tiles grow attached organisms and moss mud, in order to reduce the reflection of light by the ceramic tiles. One week before releasing the seedlings, place some cleaned and disinfected alligator weed around the inside of the pond, leaving an open water area in the center of the pond as a feeding place for the rice field eels. At the same time, put several loaches and 1 toad in each pond.
2. Seedling release: generally in early April, the purchase of eel seedlings can begin. It is best to choose cage-caught eel seedlings without external injuries, requiring lively swimming, strong physique, and uniform size, about 30 per kg; those with large size differences should be divided into different ponds for stocking. Before stocking, soak the eel seedlings in 3% concentration salt water for about 5 minutes. The stocking amount is suitably 5 kg per sq m, ensuring that the size reaches more than 150 g when sold that year.
3. Daily management: first, persist in patrolling the pond every morning and evening, promptly remove and isolate sick and dead eel seedlings, and diagnose the cause of disease. Second, closely monitor changes in water quality. In general seasons, change the water once every 3-5 days; in high-temperature seasons, change the water once a day; water changes are generally carried out in the morning. When the water temperature exceeds 28°C, use cloth to build a shade shed, which can play a clear role in cooling.
4. Feeding: when the water temperature reaches above 18°C, the rice field eels begin to feed. However, the eel seedlings stocked in the pond have a very poor appetite in the first few days and generally do not actively feed. From the 4th day, they can be trained to feed. At first, use live earthworms to lure them to open their mouths, or use fresh mussel meat cut into strips of 4 cm × 1 cm × 1 cm to train them to eat. After a few days, artificial compound feed can be given: mix with an appropriate amount of wheat flour, add fish meal, make strip-shaped feed through a meat grinder, cool it until semi-dry, and then feed. Feed once every evening, and the feeding amount is calculated as 3%-5% of the total weight of the eels in the pond. Generally place it in the open water area in the pond, which is convenient both for observing the feeding situation and for removing leftover feed.
5. Disease prevention: adhere to the principle of giving priority to prevention and combining prevention with treatment. Because rice field eels mainly rely on smell to find food, their sense of smell is quite well developed, and they are very sensitive to unusual odors containing drugs. If there is an unusual odor in the food, their feeding amount is significantly reduced, and they may even refuse to eat. Therefore, drugs cannot be used frequently to prevent eel diseases as in fish farming. Instead, only ecological disease prevention measures can be adopted, such as raising toads and loaches in the pond. It is best to use few or no drugs.
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