Freshwater Fish Egg Incubators II

There are at least 3 types of fish incubators presently used in Philippine aquaculture namely:

1)      Bed type incubator- this is commonly used for the hatching of adhesive type fish eggs like the Asian and African Catfish and Pangasius. With the addition of a substrate for egg attachment like a bunched yarn,  “kakaban” or water lily roots, the same bed type incubator are used for the hatching of Common Carp, Japanese koi, and goldfish.

Culture of the Native Hito (Clarias macrocephalus)

Introduction

The freshwater catfish, Clarias ssp. are widely distributed in Southeast, South Asia and Africa. They exist in a variety of habitats from brackishwater in estuaries to fully freshwater rivers and lakes. In the mid- 1990's, and introduced species, Clarias gariepinus, have become a very popular aquaculture species in the country because they can be spawned artificially, grow very fast, can tolerate farming conditions and are easy to culture.

In the Philippines, there are now three species of the genus Clarias, namely, the Native Hito (Clarias macrocephalus, the Thai catfish (Clarias batrachus) and the African Hito, (Clarias gariepinus). Among the three species, only C. macrocephalus is indigenous in the Philippines while the other two are introduced species. C. gariepinus originated from Africa while C. batrachus came from Thailand. The introduction of these species into the country was believed to have contributed to the diminishing population of the native catfish. To date, the native catfish can scarcely be found only in some remote areas of the Philippines namely Mindoro and Palawan where the two other species have not been introduced before.