An Giang farmers has successfully deployed the breeding and applied microbial technology in incubating tire track eel for environment assurance.

Farmer Nguyễn Bá Sang in Phú Thuận commune of Thoại Sơn (An Giang) has successfully deployed the breeding and application of microbial technology in incubating tire track eel in association with environment protection.

Sang shared that his family had a breeding facility and he was carrying out a production chain from fingerlings to fries, with tire track eel feeding and breeding being a vital key to the quality and survival rate.

Tire track eel broodstocks are selected from rivers and grow-out ponds at a certain ratio so as to prevent the inbreeding which will reduce the growth rate of the fish and result in deformity. Female fish must be fed by high quality industrial feed with protein level at 40-42%.

Tire track eel starts to propagate after 3-4 months of spawning. As for spawning, incubation is important. It is difficult and demanding to prevent Saprolegniasis from eating eggs so as to achieve a high hatching rate. Accordingly, Sang has used probiotics to inhibit Saprolegniasis right at the incubation period.

In his opinion, not only must water be filtered and sterilized, but also it must be aerated within 12 hours to eliminate microorganism in the water and remaining sterilizing substances. Then Bacillus subtilis will be incubated within 3 hours under the temperature of 29 Celcius, salinity of 50/00, and hatching density of 10gram/20 liter of water. After proliferation, Bacillus subtilis will be moved to the incubation tank. The hatching rate of fertilized eggs, which are put in the incubation tanks under the above conditions, will be 10-20% higher than the traditional way. The average rate of fertilization is 85% and the hatching rate reaches 70-75%.

This method helps reduce production costs, minimize wastewater to go into the environment, and leave less negative environmental effects. “If the technical process is properly applied, fingerlings will be healthy, leaving little deformity, high survival rate, rare disease infection, and rapid development and resulting in higher productivity and value of tire track eels”, affirmed Sang.

VFM