1 Materials and Methods
The adult fish were collected from the natural
resources (Rudrasagar Lake, Sepahijala District,
Tripura) in the month of May,2007 and stocked in the
earthen ponds (0.03ha area) of the College of
Fisheries, Lembucherra, Tripura. The fish were fed
with small fish, prawn and artificial feed (mixture of
rice bran, mustard oil cake and dry fish powder) ad
libitum and reared for a period of two months. In the
last week of July, 2007 4 numbers of fully matured
male and female fish (each) were selected. The female
fish were injected with ovaprim @ 1.0ml/kg body
weight while the male fish were injected with ovaprim
@ 0.5ml/kg body weight. The average weight of the
broodfish was in the range of 40-45gm. After injection,
the fish were kept in a breeding hapa and maintained
in cement cistern having a mild water flow. After 8
hours of injection, the fish were taken out of the hapa,
and the male fish were dissected and the testes were
removed and sperm suspension was prepared by
macerating the testes in the physiological saline in a
mortar and pestle. The female fish, in which the eggs
were oozed out easily with gentle pressure on the
abdomen, were selected and stripped and eggs were
collected in a clean enamel tray and fertilized with
the sperm suspension by gentle mixing with help of a
feather. The fertilized eggs were washed with clean
water and kept in a flow through system for hatching.
The eggs started hatching after 20 hours and within
24 hours all the eggs hatched (at a water temperature
of 27℃). The hatchlings were kept on the flow
through system.