Murrel Fish(Korrameenu) Farming : Maintenance, Challenges and Profits

Murrel Fish also known as Korrameenu(కొర్రమీను)/Korramatta in Telangana is most commonly produced by the farmers due to its demand in the market. Infact, it is the official Fish of Telangana.

Maintenance

1. Proper Water Inlets and water outlets Water need to be changed regularly. For Small fishes daily once. For Big fishes once in a two days.
2. Small fish need to separated from the big fishes so that they can be saved from the big fishes.
3. In Commercial fish farms like tanks or manually dug ponds, external feed is given by the farmers to feed the fishes. The feed size need to be changed as per the size of the fish. Small fishes can comfortably eat the feed which is small in size and big fishes eat big size feed

Challenges

1. Around 10-15 % of the fish seed may not survive till they reach the desired size
2. Not all the fishes grow to the full size. Due to this selling the small fishes is very difficult even at zero profit. Because for small fishes cutting and cleaning would be a same effort as that of the big fishes and with this effort the amount of meat eventually get is lesser when compared to big fishes.
3. When water is not changed frequently in the tanks or ponds , fishes get sick and may die.
4. There is of risk not knowing the fish seed you are purchasing is of good quality or not. Always purchase the seed which is habituated to the manual feed (which you are planning to raise the fishes in the farm). If the seed is not habituated to the manual feeding it may not eat the feed. It takes time for those small fishes to get habituated to the manual feed.
5. Murrel fishes are attacker fishes, they attack on each other. So the fishes died in this attack will not float on the surface of the water making it difficult to track the count .There is a risk is of missing the count from the start of the farming till the fishes grow to a desired size.
6. As the fishes grow , due to their increased small tanks may become uncomfortable to move freely. This makes fishes stressful and prone to diseases.

Always start with less number of Fishes and less investment. Gradually increase the production when you are achieving success. Some farmers start with heavy investment in the initial stages and may not get results incurring heavy losses. For example, a farmer in Telangana, built a big cement tanks for Murrel Fish farming with an investment of Rs.8 Lakhs. But the fishes did not grow up to the desired size which results in less Quantity of fish production. Thus the farmer faced heavy losses. The link for the video to gain the complete knowledge is given below. 

Profits

Let examine the cost of raising 1000 fishes in the fish farm.

Cost of Fish seed Rs. 7/- per seed

In a period of 8-9 months fishes attain an average weight of 700 gm (If it is Tank System) and 1000gm (if it is a Pond System)

From the above calculations we need to spend Rs. 1,50,000 for the fish feed for a period of 9 months to get an average weight of 700 gm.

Excluding the Tank Maintenance cost , the cost of fish seed (1000 )and Feed cost amounts to 7×1000+1,50,000=1,57,000

In the Market the wholesale selling price can be between Rs.350-400 per Kg.

Assuming minimum of 350 per Kg.

In the Tank system

(with average weight of 700 gm),we can earn around 0.7x1000x350=2,45,000

Earning a profit of 2,45,000-1,57,000=88,000

In the Pond system

(with average weight of 1Kg), we can earn around 1000×350=3,50,000.

Earning a profit of 3,50,000-1,57,000=1,93,000