Spawning In Catfish

Well It's one thing to rare fish for personal consumption, It is another to rear for sales and to make profit. Here in Nigeria, Catfish is kinda what we do prefer to eat although it is consumed more in the East & South than in the North & West. It grows fast let say 4-5 months of rearing period i.e. if You start by rearing the juveniles and if You're practicing Intensive Management. But here is the thing, they don't reproduce in captivity..quite weird but yap that's true. They actually know when they're in captivity. But we aqua cultural scientists actually found a means of making them reproduce in captivity. In other terms we call it SPAWNING of Brood Stock. Although reproduction in fish is called Spawning, these method is quite different and more complicated. You'd be wondering what a Brood Stock is well I'll explain..They're the lets say adults or mature Catfish. So how do we know an adult Catfish. It's actually much simpler than knowing an adult human. For the MALES, they have what we call the genital papilla like the penis of human except they're much more smaller. A mature male usually has a more protrusive genital papilla let say in other words a much bigger and elongated penis. For the FEMALES, their genital papilla is much more pinkish in colour and do know unlike the MALES, theirs are not elongated but are much more like a mimature version the human female genitals. Also the sides of the Female Catfish are Usually robust this is because of the egg sacs in them. Now after getting or identifying the Brood Stocks, we do what we call INDUCING of the Female Catfish. So what do I mean by Inducing? Due to the fact that Catfish do not reproduce in captivity, we do inject them with a hormone called Ovuline. So how does this hormone Ovuline work? Like in humans, the hypothalamus in the brain signals the pituitary gland which is a gland also in the brain to secrete a hormone called Progesterone in Human Females to prepare the eggs for ovulation in preparation for Birth...quite where the name Ovuline came from (Ovuline-Ovulation). So this Ovuline actually prepares the eggs in the Female Broodstock. We do measure the amount to Inject the Fish which is 0.5ml/kg of Female fish. And we do allow a period of 8-9 hrs for the Ovuline to fully have its impact so You need to calculate the time have to inject so You don't keep the fish waiting because these catfish don't usually like waiting & we do call this time frame the Latency Period and after this latency period we do strip the eggs from the female fish, they're green in colour in case You see white...nah just know that they are dead. The eggs are being stripped into a bowl. Two methods can be involved in spawning catfish i.e. the wet and the dry method. I prefer the wet method though. The wet method involves the use of saline water. So saline water is added to the bowl containing the eggs...be careful not to add too much. Now to the males, what do they contribute..Of course like every other male species of living thing they produce sperm. But in Catfish it's quite a painful process because unlike the Females that we do strip the eggs, You can't strip the sperm of the Male so You have to cut it open and remove the sperm sac and that is really a painful process cause the fish has to be alive for the removal of the sperm to be done..but unfortunately its good for whosoever is involved in the spawning because You'll have some fish to take home and devour. After getting the sperm sacs (I said "sacs" because they are 2 in number just as the testicles of Human males are 2 in number.) we cut them open for the milt to flow out ( again "milt" is preferable to sperm) into the eggs and saline water mix and they are all mixed together and then fertilization has started. Well thats all for tonight and I promise to tell You more on how these eggs are to hatch and how they are taken care off. See You'll...