MURREL culture

Murrel
culture-In India the Channa species are popularly known as Murrels,the snake
headed fishes and the mud fishes.The familiarly available species of murrels in
India are 1.Channa marulius 2.Channa punctatus and 3.Channa striatus.These are
found in freshwater ponds,lakes,canals and rivers.These fishes attain maturity
with in 3-6 months of their age and breeds naturally even in confined waters
through out the year.The murrels are carnivores and canibalists-the small
fishes,insects,zooplanktons and their own breed are the natural foods.The
murrels are air breathing fishes,can survive out side the pond environment for
2-4days.This is the reason why these fishes are sold live in the market.The
murrels posses vertebral column only and do not contain the spicules or the
small bones which makes it easy to eat.The murrel fish meat is considered to be
delicacy.The Murrels fetch very high price to that of Carps.The selling price
ranges from 600-1000 Rs a kg right at the pond bund.But till to date no large
scale or commercial pond culture exists.The reasons for this are 1.these are
cannibalists-eats its own breed say for example if we stock 3000 numbers/acre
and after certain rearing period go for harvesting we find only 10-30 numbers
.So no number,no tonnage.2.These are prolific breeders,breeds through out the
year in case stocking density at the begining time of culture is 3000/acre we
see lacks of baby murrels and 10-30 harvestable sized murrels at the end of
culture period. Again no tonnage ,of course large number will be
there.3.Murrels are carnivores eats huge quanitity of animal proteins but their
FCR is very HIGH, means eats a lot grows little,thus economically not
feasable.Thus the murrels available in the market are naturally caught from the
wild and NOT from the culture ponds.Greater research work is essential to
establish Murrel culture in ponds.