Severe Mortality in Catfishes: A Devastating Threat to the Aquaculture

July 11, 2021

PBC News: Revamping in catfish production is glorified as one ofthe most successful advances in theaquaculture sector of Bangladesh. There are few high valued catfishes such as Gulsha (Mystuscavasius), Pabda (Ompokpabda),Shing (Heteropneustesfossilis) and Magur (Clariusbatrachus) are farmed profitably all over the country due to its simple culture technologies which is developed and guided by the Department of Fisheries (DoF), Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute(BFRI) through their vast research activities. Meanwhile, few entrepreneur and private organizations have made the technology commercially viableby importing micro feeds and other necessary technologies. As a result, the production of these consumer demanded fishes has increased almost 75,000 metric ton during the last production year 2019-2020.

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The nutritive value of these particular four speciesis abundant in containing protein, lipids, ash, minerals and vitamins. We consume the amount of nutritionby intaking 100g edible weight of pabda, gulsha, shing and magurare Protein: 16.2 g, 16.8 g, 19.1 g and 16.6 g; Fat: 9.5 g, 5.1 g, 1.9 g and 1.3 g; Ash: 0.9 g, 1.0 g, 1.0 g and 1.1 g; Enery: 619 kj, 479 kj, 374 kj and 326 kj, respectively. The catfishes are enjoyed appetizingly by the all classes of people as a delicious food item by cooking with a variety of savory & tasty recipes. These species are recommended by the dieticians and nutritionists to the surgery patients due to containing the high amount of Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFA) and other tissue building essential amino acids.

This nutrition value is collected from a research conducted in AsureQuality Laboratory, New Zealand andTechnical University of Denmark, which ispublished in the Journal of Food Composition and AnalysisV-42, page 120–133in 2015. The research team (Bogard J.R, The University of Queensland, Australia;Thilsted S.H., WorldFish; Wahab M.A., Bangladesh Agricultural University& Jakobsen J.,Technical University of Denmark) alsofound the following macro & micro mineral stuffson their study on total 54 fish and shrimp species of Bangladesh:

Species   Iron (mg)   Zinc (mg)   Calcium (mg)   Iodine (µg)   Selenium (µg)   Phosphorus (mg)
Pabda   0.46      0.90 91.0    7.0    27.0   150.0
Gulsha   1.80              1.30      120.0                13.0                    41.0   180.0
Shing       2.20              1.10   60.0   nd   31.0   220.0

Magur 1.20 0.74 59.0 22.0 22.0 210.0

Species   Magnesium (mg)   Sodium (mg)   Potassium (mg)   Manganese (mg)   Sulphur (mg)   Copper (mg)
Pabda      23.0                        47.0   230.0 0.073                       190.0                0.042
Gulsha      26.0      33.0                   210.0   0.22      220.0                0.039
Shing            37.0                        54.0   300.0   0.038      230.0                0.057
Magur          26.0   61.0                  350.0      0.021                     180.0                 0.050

But, unfortunately a huge number of severe mortalitiesincurred and destroyed the production by some unidentified diseases in the culture ponds of catfishes. Every yearthousand tons of gulsha, pabda, shing and magur production is hampered by the pathogenic outbreaks in the farms.As aresult, the farmers are losing their investment and interest to the catfish farm