Shawdesh desk:
Applying the biofloc technology, a system that recycles waste nutrients as fish food, brought fortune to Abdul Momin, a resident of Rajarhat upazila in Kurigram, who raises native breeds of fish in his very own backyard.
The 43-year-old madrasah teacher Abdul Momin of Khalisha Koilashkuthi village, last year gained net profits of around Tk1 lakh by the fish farming.
After learning about this technique from a YouTube tutorial, Momin constructed a water reservoir of about four feet deep and 18 feet wide on his property in March 2021. Next month, he released 600 grams of Carfew, Silver carp and Hungari fish fries (Pona-machh) after buying them from Bogura Sadar upazila.
Later in June of 2021, his fish fries were sold at Tk30,000 to local fish farmers when their growth reached 1.5 to 2 inches in length. He only invested Tk10,000 to buy the fish fries, medicine and feeds.
In July 2021, he cleaned the water reservoir and released 10,000 fries of carp fish commonly known as koi of Thailand hybrid variety.
After three months, he got production of about nine maunds of fish and sold eight maunds at Tk70,000 by investing only Tk40,000. No extra labourer was required in the farming, he said.
Last year, he got a bumper production of koi fish and sold 22 maunds at Tk1,85,000 in two terms by expending only Tk85,000.
This year, he has released fish fries of striped catfish (pangash) variety which will take time up to around ten months to mature. Till October, he has expended around Tk5,000 in this regard.
Seeing his success, other farmers in the locality are now interested in applying biofloc technology.
“Many people from different upazilas and districts visited my fish farm. Besides, local fisheries officials also visited the farm and inspired me to go ahead,” said Momin.
“Anyone can benefit by using the biofloc technology after gaining enough knowledge on it. Adequate knowledge should be gathered on numerous issues, including good fry-fish selection, oxygen crisis in water and rates of ammonium, PH and TDS in water and place selection,” he suggested.
Rajarhat Upazila Fishery Officer Ariful Alam said, “I’ve visited Momin’s fish farm of the biofloc technology. It is praiseworthy that he has benefited financially from the fish farming. But we advise the local people to use different technologies including the biofloc for farming fishes.”
Biofloc technology is an aquaculture system that recycles waste nutrients as fish food. Biofloc, specifically cultured microorganisms, are introduced into the water to form microbial protein from toxic fish waste and other organic matter. This maintains water quality as well as lowering costs, he said.
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