Question

State the advantages of composite fish culture.

Answer 1

Hint: Many other methods of fish farming are space consuming and high-maintenance.

Complete answer:
Composite fish culture is a fish farming process where 5 to 6 fast-growing and compatible species of fish with different feeding habits ( so that they don’t compete for food) are stocked in the same pond so that all the pond’s ecological niches are occupied by fishes. culture. Composite fish culture is used to increase yield per hectare of water. This process is also called mixed fish farming. Fishes used in this system are, Catla and silver carp that are surface feeders, rohu which is a column feeder, and marginal carp and common carp which are bottom feeders.

Advantages of composite fish farming are:
- Ensures complete utilization of the food resources of the pond.
- This is very easy to do with less complicated requirements for sustenance of the system hence has an assured yield.
- A small pond can sustain a comparatively larger population since the species don’t compete for food.
- The survival rate of fishes increases due to low competition for food resources thus increasing the yield.
- Due to different lever feeders, there’s complete utilization of all the resources of the pond.

Note: It is important to keep in mind that despite the advantage of being able to rare a huge number of fish at once the fish farmer has to make sure the pond or water body used for cultivation is at least huge enough for the fish to be comfortable, overcrowding can cause stressful conditions for the fish which may affect the size and the reproductive cycle of the fish and intern the yield.