CATFISH

Type of fish: Catfish

Scientific name: SILURIFORMES

Family History:
• Channel catfish were originally found only in the Gulf States and the Mississippi Valley north to
the prairie provinces of Canada and Mexico.
• Members of the order of Siluriformes are found in fresh and salt water worldwide.
• Channel Catfish were not found in the Atlantic coastal plain or west of the Rocky Mountains.
Since then, Channel Catfish have been widely introduced throughout the United states and the
world.
• The Asian Catfish (Clarias Macrocephalus) is a freshwater fish that is indigenous to the
Philippines especially in the Bicol region, Palawan, and some areas in Mindanao. It can be found
in lakes, rivers, tributaries, and other freshwater bodies.

Feeding process
1. Most catfish producers feed once a day, 7 days a week during the warmer months. Research has
shown feeding twice a day improves growth of fingerlings, but there is no benefit by feeding
twice a day for food fish grow out.
2. Feed is typically blown onto the surface of the water using mechanical feeders. Feeds should be
scattered over as wide an area as possible to provide equal feeding opportunities for many fish
as possible.
3. Feeding with prevailing winds allow the feed to float across the pond and minimizes the amount
of feed washing ashore.
4. Overfeeding should be avoided since waste feeds affects the quality of water and it increases
the production cost of this kind of fish.
Major ingredients used in catfish feeds generally include soybean meal, cottonseed
meal, corn and by-products, and wheat by-products.

Reproduction
• Male and Female by swimming together and releasing the eggs and sperm at the same time
into a nest built by the female or both the male and female.
• After mating, the male chases away the female and then guards the eggs until they hatch.
• Mature catfish can lay 4,000 to 100,000 eggs.
• Breeding males can fertilize as many as 9 spawns a season if the eggs are removed from the
spawn site each time.
• Usually spawn every year throughout their
lifetime.
• Spawn in the summer.
• A single female channel catfish can spawn 2,000
to 50,000 young.
• A baby catfish is called “Fry”.
• They are cavity spawners and will only spawn in a
hole, in a bank, or in containers such as milk cans
or concrete tiles placed in the pond at a depth of
two to four feet.
• The eggs from a 36 hours old mass should hatch
in 6 to 10 days depending upon the water temperature.
• They won’t reproduce if they lack an adequate spawning structure.
• They usually spawn in the late spring to early summer time frame. When the water temperature
reaches the high 60 degrees all the way to the 80 degrees Fahrenheit catfish will start to spawn.