Fish stocking

When your pond is ready and water filled in, it is time to stock your fish in the pond. However, stocking of fish in the pond should start with an idea of species of fish to culture. For the purposes of this manual, discussion will hinge around tilapia species which fortunately dominate fish farming in Malawi.

• Source quality fingerlings. This could come from other large scale fish farms/companies, institutions and government hatcheries.
• Tilapia species are usually preferred because they are prolific breeders. However, much attention has to be put on the stocking density.
• High stocking density, 5 fish/square metre for instance, might cause severe stunting. On the other hand, this could be advantageous if interest is to harvest small to-medium sized fish.
• Stocking density of 2-3 fish/square metre is recommended under extensive/general management.
• Attention should also be on the suitable transport for the fingerings from the source to your pond. Your choice of transport must ensure the maximal survival of the fingerings.

Feeding fish

When you are done stocking the fish in your ponds, feeding them is one of the management practices for them to properly grow.

• When feeding fish in the ponds, it is advisable to feed them at the same place and time each day.
• Stop feeding when the fish have stopped eating to avoid feed wastage.
• Fish could be fed maize bran mixed with chicken manure to produce excellent results
• Make sure that fish are fed 3-5% of the total fish weight. In this case, if you stocked 100 pieces of fish each weighing 15g for instance, total fish weight is (100 x 15) g. Quantity of feed in this case is 5% of (100 x 15) g. However, note that this rate changes as fish grow. The idea is that small fish need more feed relative to their size, than large fish do.
• If the pond has abundant natural feed such as planktons (zoo and phytoplankton), less supplementary feed is needed
• Feed supplements in this case could be rice (broken, bran, hulls), maize (gluten and gluten meal), sugarcane (molasses), cotton seeds, brewery wastes and yeast, kitchen wastes, slaughterhouse wastes (offals, blood and rumen contents), chicken droppings and pig manure.

Fish harvesting

When your fish have relatively grown to your desirable size, it is time to harvest. Basically, when fish attain certain size, they stop growing and in that case, continuing feeding them implies high cost. Harvesting them is therefore best idea. Sometimes by just observing when the fish are right in water, it might be deceiving to make judgement if the fish are still growing or otherwise. Farmers therefore at certain interval, once a month for instance, can be catching few fish samples from the pond and weigh them to track their growth through weight.

• However, 5 to 6 months from stocking if the culture period was during the warm months (September to March) and relatively more months if the fish were grown in cooler months is the proper time to harvest the fish.
• Harvesting on time is not only good to reduce costs but also to avoid losses due to predation and theft.
• Farmers can use a suitable harvesting net that is able to reach both sides of the pond when harvesting
• Farmers can also open the outlet to drain the water probably halfway to easily harvest the fish.
• If farmers are targeting complete harvest, they can drain up to 75% of the pond.