Pangasius or Cream Dory Culture

Pangasius or Cream Dory Culture

Posted by: pinoyentre Posted date: June 28, 2012 In: Culture & Breeding | comment : 0

Pangasius, scientifically known as Pangasius hypopthalmus is a large freshwater catfish indigenous to the countries within the Mekong Delta. It is regarded as the third most important freshwater aquaculture species because of its fast growth, hardiness and versatile feeding habit.

Pangasius is also known as cream dory, tra, swai or striped catfish in the fish food market or Siamese shark or sutchi in the aquarium hobby. It was introduced in the Philippines both by the private sector and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources as an alternative species for freshwater aquaculture.

Pangasius is an air-breathing fish that can grow normally even at low dissolved oxygen levels of 0.1 mg/L, making it adaptive and tolerant in poor water quality. Under intensive aquaculture conditions the species will reach harvest size of one kilogram in approximately six to seven months and requires low protein feeds. It is the fast-growing fish in the aquaculture sector with 35 to 45 percent meat recovery.

Body

Pangasius has a scaleless skin with quite long slender body with black to dark gray on the dorsal portion and light gray on the lateral side and whitish on the abdominal portion parallel along the lateral line. Total body length is four to five times of its head length and standard length is almost/nearly four to five times of the body width.

Mouth

With a wide mouth and curvature (not sharp) located in quite low position give the fish the ability to feed on a variety of food items (omnivorous). Two (2) pairs of barbells are situated in the mouth – one pair on the upper jaw (maxillary barbell) and another pair on the lower jaw (mandibulary barbell); the first pair is longer than the latter.

Fins

The fins are classified into dorsal, caudal, adipose, ventral and anal fin. The dorsal fin consists of one hard fin ray (spine like saw) and six (6)...