Finfish Breeding and Hatchery Management (2+1)

Unit 7 - Breeding of mahseers

7.7. Egg and embryonic developmental stages

Important egg and embryonic developmental stages are as follows

Egg and embryonic stage	Hours after fertilization
	At Harangi	At Mangalore
1. Blastodisc formation	2	-
2. Morula stage	5	4-5
3. Blastula stage	13	10
4. Gastrula stage	18	-
5. Yolk-plug stage	27	22
6. Embryo indication	37	-
7. Pea-shaped embryo	48	-
8. Twitching movement	55	33-34
9. Moderate twitching	63	55
10. Vigorous twitching	70	62
11. Hatching started	80	63
12. Hatching completed	112	70

• The hatching period ranges between 80 and 112 hours at Harangi.
• Fungal growth on eggs was observed and the same was controlled by dipping eggs in a solution of KMnO₄ (3-5 ppm) for 5 minutes.
• Wild fry (about 2-week-old) of T. khudree were collected from a stretch of the Harangi river adjacent to the fish farm from where the wild brooders were earlier collected, were reared in nursery ponds parallel to the hatchery-produced fry.
• The length of newly hatched farm raised fry was 7.4 mm (+/- 0.55). By 37 days, the fry attained a length of 5.63cm and a weight of 2.03 mm.
• The wild fry reached 22.7 mm (+/-2.19mm) after a rearing period of 20 days. By the 67^th day, the hatchery fry grew to 80.8 mm (weight: 6.39 g), while the wild fry attained 64.1 mm (weight: 3.02 g).
• The first mahseer hatchery to be established in India was at TPCL at Lonavla in Maharashtra State and the credit goes to C. N. Kulkarni.
• The second mahseer hatchery was established at Harangi Fish Farm in Kodagu District of Karnataka, with a capacity of 1.0 million seed per year.
• Later, the National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources (NBFGR), located at Lucknow, Uttar Prudish, standardized technique for large scale production of mahseer fry in Uttarakhand State using the method adopted by TPCL, Lonavla. Subsequently, the Department of Fisheries of Uttarakhand established two mahseer hatchery units, one at Dehradun and the other at Bhimtal. Recently, the Jammu and Kashmir government constructed a mahseer hatchery at Anji near Salal Hydel Project with a capacity to hatch 1.0 million eggs per year.
• Very recently, the Government of Kerala established one hatchery at Malampuza and the Government of Tamil Nadu has just sanctioned one mahseer hatchery which is coming up at Salaiyar Dam in Coimbatore District, under Western Ghat Development Programme.