Lets make India No.1 in Fisheries

Our quest is to make India No.1 in fishery sector in the World.

To solve any problem, the best step forward is to understand the problem from the grass root level.

The problem – We saw in many fisheries across the North, East and Central India that the production is just about 10-15% of the total fish seeds put in. That means majority of them do not make it to the grown up stage and die in the seedling stage itself.

The factors – As we know, fisheries is not being done the way it should’ve been done in India, thus we are still number two in the world for fish production. Why many villagers shy away from fishery and rely more on agriculture is because, of a few basic facts and misnomers.

Number -1, is many people think owning a pet and later killing it is inhuman, and another big factor is Number-2, that people think fishery is too technical to be similar to agriculture, as you need to take care of water quality, aeration, pH, temperature, turbidity, salinity, ammonia, fish feed, antibiotics, immunity of fish and so on.

However, as I said in the beginning – these are all misnomers and myths. Frankly speaking, when the production is just 10-15% of the seedlings put in, the fish farm owner would like and focus upon saving maximum %age of seedlings, so it isn’t killing but saving the lives of the fishes. No fishery owner kills the fishes, they only save them, a third party would catch them alive, a fourth party would buy in bulk, a fifth party would retail them and a sixth party would kill them to sell fresh to their customer. Therefore, it’s giving livelihood to so many people in the long chain.

Coming on to the second factor, it’s really important to understand it before you take a plunge to solve it. Yes, it is a technical job. But you need to understand the technicalities involved, because you don’t have to do it yourself; it is done naturally all across the globe. In rivers, in lakes, in sea, wherever there is aquatic life, all those parameters are maintained by the Mother Nature.  Like for all terrestrial animals, air, food, water and habitat is continuously created by Mother Nature, the same is done for aquatic animals too. The basic principal remains the same – for any life form to dwell and prosper, there has to be adequate arrangement for plenty of natural food, plenty of fresh water and a peaceful habitat. If these three conditions are met, they will dwell, prosper, breed and grow healthy, strong and immune to diseases. So let’s understand the parameters, the lifecycle and the ecosystem of the aquatic ecology.

Parameters –

1-     pH – (potential of hydrogen) is a numeric scale used to specify the acidity or alkalinity of an aqueous solution. Solutions with a pH less than 7 are acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic. Pure water is neutral, at pH 7, being neither an acid nor a base. As fishes dwell in fresh water, the pH should be maintained close to neutral, a little deviation on either sides is tolerable by fishes, but when leaving the spawns to the water for the first time, utmost care should be taken to keep is as close as possible to neutral 7 value, since the spawns are delicate.

2-     Aeration – like terrestrial beings, aquatic being also breathe oxygen, but this oxygen is dissolved in water, in between the water molecules, there are dissolved oxygen molecules. And the good part is, similar to the land; the oxygen in water is also produced by plants – the aquatic plants called phytoplanktons. So the more plants you have in water, the more oxygen will be generated and the aeration would be as high as the desired level by the fishes.

3-     Feed – the natural fish feed is the aquatic plants and animals – called phytoplanktons & zoo planktons. The food for zooplanktons is also the phytoplanktons. Thus is the population of phytoplanktons is in abundance, the natural food reserve for the aquatic ecosystem is maintained.

4-     Ammonia – this is the fish excreta, and this is toxic for fishes. The more the number of fishes, the more is the excreta and thus the more is the danger of ammonification of water body. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen & hydrogen, so it’ll get decomposed to the core element, and these elements are food for phytoplanktons, thus abundance of phytoplanktons would also take care of ammonia, and maintain the quality of water.

5-     Temperature – fortunately, India has tropical weather, thus most of the planes do not have the temperature challenge. It is usually a good temperature for aqua farming. But still, let us understand the basic factor – the dissolved oxygen level in water. In water there are many biological and chemical reactions that occur in natural course for which many micro-organism and chemical agents are required and get naturally produced in water, for this process to happen, again the dissolved oxygen plays a big role. These are called BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) and COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), and they are inversely proportional to DO (Dissolved Oxygen) level. A higher DO translates to lower BOD & COD, and the lower is the BOD & COD, the higher is the speed of biological & chemical processes that would also generate heat and thus, the temperature would be kept optimum as per nature.

6-     Immunity, drugs & antibiotics – the immune system of a being has an inverse relation with the drugs & antibiotics. The stronger the immune system, the lesser would be the need for later. And immunity grows when the environment is natural, food is native and growth rate is effortless. When there is no anthropogenic disturbance with the ecosystem, it’s all maintained. Some external factors also play a role, like birds of prey, since fishes are the foods for birds, therefore some sort of netting should be done to protect them from aerial menace. Rest everything is taken care, if you keep the water fresh and free from chemicals.

So the bottom line is – in order to restore the water body to the natural state, we need to do the “phytoplankton culture” and the “pisciculture” would be done naturally! And this is our secret formula to grow the fish production to over 100 times in each fishery!!

For more, please log on to our websites – www.tatavgyan.com / www.cownomics.in   

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