Saturday, October 07, 2006
Raising Hito / Catfish
 Hito can be raised in a small pond. There are two common varieties of catfish in the Philippines—one that is our own native hito that thrives in rice fields and rivers, sometimes in muddy places; and the other one brought over from Thailand or Taiwan. Both kinds can be raised and grown commercially.
Within four months, hito can grow as big as a size weighing 300-400 grams or three in a kilo. In Taiwan, they grow hito as big as two kilos each.
Hito from Taiwan origin is dark gray with white belly.
Cage
1. For commercial purposes, one hectare of fish pond can rear as many as 100,000 small hito or fingerlings. In other countries like Thailand, they grow as many as 300,000 to 400,000 fingerlings in one hectare of fish pond.
2. The sides of the fishpond should be concrete so as to withstand flood or heavy rains. The smaller the grow-out ponds, the easier to manager them. (1 ½ hectare)
3. It is not necessary to provide an aerator even if the fish population is big because the hito has an auxiliary respiratory organ and can naturally breathe fresh air; therefore it is not stressed by low dissolved oxygen levels.
4. The ponds water depth must be about one and half meters ( ½ m) throughout the culture period. fresh water may be drawn from a nearby river. Change of water is done when it becomes murky.
Feed
1. Hito needs protein, so they like flesh meat. They can also thrive on any food growing in the pond bottom, or they can eat one another, or escape from the pond. So, they must be provided with enough protein foods—carcass, trash fish, commercial fish feed.
Some hito growers get their carcass feed from chicken or poultry internal organs, or trash fish from fishermen.
It takes four months to grow hito that is about 2 kilograms, or three-to-four-pieces per kilo.
SOURCE: Sorsogon LGU
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Agri-Aqua Business
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