<div>Background: Freshwater Asian catfish, Pangasianodon hypophthalmus (pangas) is one of the fastest growing exotic species throughout world including India. Most recently, it has been considered as a potential candidate species for carp diversification especially in northern states of India including Punjab and Haryana. In Pangas culture, fish meal is used as primary protein source pertaining to its excellent amino acid profile, palatability and high nutritive value. However, due to continuously rising cost, limited availability and quality variations of fish meal, there is need to find out less expensive alternative quality protein sources. Among these, fish silage is easy to prepare product with high nutritional value and shelf life. &nbsp;In this view, the experimental study was conducted to evaluate the possibility of replacing fish meal with fish silage supplemented diets on growth and health status of Pangas catfish. 
 
Methods: Indoor study was conducted in FRP pools (1.5&times;1&times;0.75m) for 120 days (July &ndash; October 2018) to evaluate the effect of acid fermented fish silage (prepared from fish waste collected from local fish market of Ludhiana, Punjab) for Pangas catfish fry. To study the effect of fish silage, four experimental diets were formulated by replacing fishmeal @ 50% and 100% and mixture of soybean and groundnut meal @ 25% and 50% levels from control diet along with one reference diet without any animal protein source (neither fish meal nor fish silage) 
 
Result: The overall results of present study revealed that fish silage can be incorporated (100% replacement of fish meal with fish silage) in the diet of Pangas catfish fry (P. hypophthalmus) with improved growth and feed utilization along with positive influence on health status of fish in terms of general haematology, biochemistry and anti-oxidant status.</div>

<div>Effect of Fish Silage Supplemented Diets on Growth and Health Status of Pangas Catfish, Pangasianodon hypophthalmus Fry</div>

Background: There is no previous published record regarding different fish species found in fish markets of Kharagpur town. The place is internationally renowned due to first Institute of Technology of India. Due to largest railway establishment in Kharagpur town, an influx of population is always here from different states. As such their food preference and cultural practice is different. Present survey is relevant to depicts fish preference of the town dwellers and socio-economic status of market associated people. 
Methods: The study have been conducted from November 2018 to January 2020 thoroughly from 13 fish markets of Kharagpur town, West Bengal, India. Fish specimens collected, identified and preserved. Market related data have been collected from different agents, wholesaler etc. through questionnaire interviews. 
Result: During the study period it has been observed that 28 freshwater inland fish species; 6 freshwater exotic fish species; 19 marine fish species and 4 crustacean species are available in the Kharagpur town. Some marine molluscs like Loligo sp and Sepia sp are also sold here. There are different peoples, those belong from different districts of West Bengal and involved in fish marketing activities. Therefore, a marketing chain is being established which is interdependent to each other with a socio-economic framework. Some measures have been highlighted towards improvement of infrastructure, hygienic conditions.&nbsp;

​A Study on Fish Diversity, Marketing and Economics in Fish Markets at Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

Background: The present study investigated the mortality of fish reared in cemented tanks in backyard farming in Meghalaya.&nbsp; 
 
Methods: Five dead fish and two water samples from two different tanks were brought for laboratory investigation to ascertain the cause of death. The samples (water and fish) were subjected to arrays of microbiological and biochemical tests to detect Escherichia coli, Salmonella sp., Aeromonas sp., Vibrio sp. and Listeria sp. by culture and molecular methods respectively.&nbsp; 
 
Result: The present study showed that all the fish samples were found to be negative for Vibrio sp. but three samples were positive for Aeromonas sp. by PCR against the genes ahh1 (130bp) and aerA (309bp) and one of the fish samples was also positive for Salmonella sp.&nbsp; The most Probable Count (MPN) of the water samples was not satisfactory i.e. &gt;40 MPN/ 100 ml, the content of dissolved oxygen was also low and two of the water samples were also positive for Aeromonas sp. by PCR for the same genes. Thus, from the investigation results the death of fish was inferred due to multiple factors viz. to low dissolved oxygen, very high microbial load and detection of Salmonella sp. and Aeromonas sp. Further intervention was suggested regarding optimum holding time, pH, aeration, dissolved oxygen, stocking density, clean water and feeds to control the mortality and future prevention.

Investigation of Mortality of Fishes in Backyard Fish Farming in Meghalaya by Culture and Molecular Methodsa

Background: The study focuses on understanding the factors that influence the knowledge level and adoption of scientific fish farming practices by the members of Fish Farmers Producer Organizations (FFPOs) because they play a crucial role in the fish farming sector and have the potential to drive the adoption of scientific practices. 
&nbsp; 
Methods: The research was conducted in Purba Medinipur District, West Bengal, in 2023. From four FFPOs, total 120 respondents were chosen as sample using simple random sampling. Primary data were collected through pretested structured interview schedule. Knowledge index and adoption quotient were measured to categorize the responses of the respondents. Stepwise liner regression is done for a definite conclusion. 
&nbsp; 
Result: The study found that most respondents were middle-aged (68.33%), with educational attainment up to the secondary level (31.66%) and had moderate farming experience (55%). Approximately 40% of the respondents reported high utilization of information sources and highest portion attended three to four training sessions (45.83%). Regarding the level of knowledge in recommended scientific fish farming, 38.33% of the respondents fell into the medium category, followed by 34.17% who possessed a high level of knowledge. Regarding the extent of adoption of fish farming practices, 36.67% respondents reported a medium level of adoption, followed by a high level (32.5%). Furthermore, the study found that utilization of information sources (t = 4.595), risk orientation (t = 3.165) and training attended (t = 2.606) were the strongest positive predictors of respondents&rsquo; knowledge levels (1% sig. level). Regarding the extent of adoption, the source of information utilization (t = 9.203), scientific orientation (t = 4.861) and education (t = 3.085) were the strongest positive predictors (1% sig. level).&nbsp;

Knowledge Level and Extent of Adoption of Scientific Fish Farming Practices among Members of Fish Farmers Producer Organizations

Background: Dissolved oxygen in water is an important limiting factor for fish. In this study, the suffocation point and transcriptomes analysis of&nbsp;Acrossocheilus fasciatus with different age and gender are helpful to analyze the effects of gender and age on extreme hypoxia tolerance. 
 
Methods: First of all, we compared the difference in tolerance to extreme hypoxia among 15 fish from male adult fish, female adult fish and juvenile fish of Acrossocheilus fasciatus in each group by asphyxiation point experiment. Then, we analyzed the molecular mechanism of extreme hypoxia tolerance difference between male and female adult fish and juvenile fish by transcriptomics.&nbsp; 
 
Result: Female adult fish of Acrossocheilus fasciatus showed the strongest tolerance to extreme hypoxia in the asphyxiation point experiment. In transcriptomes experiments in all samples, we found that the expression of ncoa4 and facl4 was significantly down regulated and the expression of jnk, gpx4 and jip-1 was significantly increased in females adult fish.

​Molecular Mechanism of Extreme Hypoxia Tolerance Difference between Male and Female Adult Fish and Juvenile Fish of Acrossocheilus fasciatus by Transcriptomics

Background: The fish being highly perishable food item consumed in all strata of people. The production of freshwater fish is on the rise and need to be processed in a variety of forms to make them available for people. Nowadays, numbers of value added fish products are available in the market for consumption to achieve health beneficial effect and to cope up with malnutrition. However, consumers are unaware of the quality of the products available in the market. Therefore, the present work was undertaken to evaluate the quality of fish fingers produced from tilapia and pangasius during storage at -18&plusmn;2&deg;C. 
 
Methods: The fresh tilapia and pangasius were purchased from local market to prepare fillets. The fingers were prepared from tilapia and pangasius fillets and par fried at 180&deg;C for 30 seconds. The fried fingers were cooled at once at room temperature and stored in deep freeze at -18&plusmn;2&deg;C for shelf-life study during November 2019 to March 2021.&nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
Result: The results indicated that the fish fingers prepared from tilapia could be stored for 33 days and pangasius fingers had a shelf-life of only 27 days. All biochemical parameters viz. pH, TVB-N, PV, FFA and TBA were found increasing as the storage study progresses. The sensory score of the fish fingers produced from both the fishes were got drastically reduced at the end of deep freeze storage at -18&plusmn;2&deg;C. Overall study indicated that tilapia and pangasius fish can be successfully utilized for the preparation of various value added fish product such as fish fingers and would have sufficient shelf life at deep freeze storage at -18&plusmn;2&deg;C.

Qualitative Evaluation of Fish Fingers Prepared from Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and Pangasius (Pangasius pangasius) Stored at -18&plusmn;2&deg;C

Background: Climate-Smart Aquaculture (CSAq) is built on three pillars, i.e., sustainably increasing productivity and income, improving resilience and mitigating climate change, respectively. Feed constitutes 60%-80% of the total production cost in aquaculture. The reduction of feed cost as well as the pollution originating from uneaten feed have always attracted the attention of aquaculture researchers. Adoption of an optimal feeding regime reduces both feed cost and nutrient loading in the ponds and in turn, enhances the income of farmers and reduces environmental impacts of aquaculture practices. Mixed feeding schedules, pulsed feeding or intermittent feeding have been proposed as some of the climate-smart methods to reduce feed cost and pollution by aquaculture and it has been successfully tested in many fish species. There is lack of sufficient reports on the impact of feeding regimes on the rearing of Labeo rohita, Rohu fry. The information will be useful to farmers for rearing of fry to fingerlings with reduced cost and environmental impact. 
&nbsp; 
Methods: A 90-day experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth performance and feed utilization of Labeo rohita fry under pulsed feeding regimes as a climate smart approach.&nbsp; For the experiment, the feeding regimes followed were, control (daily feeding @5% of the biomass), 1D4R (1 day starvation+ 4 days refeeding at 5% of the biomass), 2D12R (2 days starvation+ 12 days refeeding at 5% Biomass), 4D16R (4 days starvation+ 16 days refeeding at 5% biomass). The data obtained were subjected to statistical analysis using SAS 9.3. PROC GLM was used for analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey&rsquo;s Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) test was used for all possible pair comparison of treatments at 5% level of significance. 
&nbsp; 
Result: The fishes under 1D4R exhibited significantly higher weight gain, SGR and feed conversion efficiency (FCE) and significantly lower FCR and production cost than the control group. Water quality parameters like Total NO2, NO3, total ammoniacal nitrogen and total phosphate were higher in the control group than in the treatments. The results suggest that one-day feed restriction followed by four days of refeeding could be an efficient strategy for rearing Labeo rohita fry to reduce production costs and environmental impact without compromising growth.

Pulsed Feeding Regimes for the Rearing of Labeo rohita (Hamilton) Fry: A Climate Smart Approach

<div style="text-align:justify">Background: Nursery phase is one of most critical phase in the production of stockable seed materials in carp culture. Generally, it is observed that the recovery of carp during spawn to fry is very low in farmers&rsquo; practice because of unavailability of nutrition rich feed with essencial macro and micronutrients.&nbsp; 
 
Methods:&nbsp;To address this problem, a nursery feed for carp was formulated and prepared using high-quality feed ingredients i.e.&nbsp;maize, soybean meal, groundnut oil cake (GNOC), fish meal, rice bran with supplementation of oil, minerals (with nano selenium and nano zinc) and vitamin mixture and compared the performance of nursery rohu with existing feed used by farmers Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. During the demonstration period of two weeks (spawn to fry), fish of treatment ponds were fed with nursery feed (CIFA-Carp Starter) whereas the fish of control ponds were fed with existing feeds used by the farmers. The parameters like survivability, growth and immunity of nursery rohu in treatment ponds were recorded and compared with nursery rohu of control ponds.&nbsp; 
 
Result: The results of demonstration showed that, the weight gain, survival and immunity of nursery rohu was superior when fed with CIFA-Carp Starter compared to existing feed practiced by farmers in three states. Hence, there is need to popularise this feed for improvement of aquaculture sector in the whole country.</div>

Survival and Non-specific Immune Parameters of Nursery Carp (Spawn to Fry) Fed with CIFA-Carp Starter

<div style="text-align:justify">Background: Seed stunting is a process of suppressing the normal growth of fish by manipulating various factors affecting the growth process. The present study aimed at evaluating the influence of varied photoperiod and stocking density on the growth and survival of catla (Catla catla) during the stunting process. 
Methods: Five treatments including control were used in triplicate and stocked with catla fry (0.84 g, 38.8 mm). Control, T-1 and T-2 groups were stocked with fry at 20 m-3 densities and maintained at 12 hours light and 12 hours darkness (12L:12D), 6L:18D and 0L:24D, respectively to study the influence of varied photoperiod. T-3 and T-4 were stocked with fry at 30 and 40 m-3 densities respectively to study the effect of crowding on the growth. Control at 20 m-3 density and 12L:12D photoperiod served as control for both the studies.&nbsp; 
Result: There was a significant reduction in the survival, harvested body weight, total length and specific growth rate in the treatments T-1 and T-2 as compared to the control (P&lt;0.05). Though these attributes were statistically similar (P&gt;0.05) between T-1 and T-2, the values were relatively higher in T-1 suggesting considerable photoperiod effect on fish growth. Similarly, the HBW, total length and SGR significantly reduced from T-3 to T-4 with increased density depicting effect of crowding on growth. Such results indicated that both increased stocking density and decreased photoperiod lead to growth suppression and can be used as tools for seed stunting in catla.</div>

<div style="text-align:justify">Influence of Photoperiod and Rearing Density of Fry in Production of Stunted Fingerlings of Catla catla (Hamilton)</div>

<div>Background: The popularity of snack foods among children and younger has attracted the attention of food processor for finding out new avenues of earning profit. Therefore, the aim of this research was to develop crackers from freshwater fish, catla and if found successful, become a part of food industry on large scale. 
 
Methods: Fresh fish, Labeo catla were procured from local market, available at Nagpur city, Maharashtra. The mince was prepared using meat mincer. The corn flour and seasonings were purchased from local market. The 60:40 ratio of fish mince to corn flour was used for making crackers. The minced meat, corn flour, salt and seasonings were mixed to form smooth dough. Dough was placed in boiling water at 100&deg;C, boiled for 15 minutes and cool down for 15-20 minutes. Dough was cut into 2-3 mm thick slices, sun dried for 2 days and fried in edible oil at 180-200&deg;C for 30 seconds. 
 
Result: The results indicate that crispy, golden brown colored crackers were developed from mince of catla fish with excellent nutritional quality. The developed crackers were rated as &lsquo;liked more&rsquo; among the panelists. This may replace wafers from plant origin in near future to meet the ever-increasing demand of nutritious food to the people.&nbsp;</div>

Effect of Fish Silage Supplemented Diets on Growth and Health Status of Pangas Catfish, Pangasianodon hypophthalmus Fry

A Study on Fish Diversity, Marketing and Economics in Fish Markets at Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

Investigation of Mortality of Fishes in Backyard Fish Farming in Meghalaya by Culture and Molecular Methodsa

Knowledge Level and Extent of Adoption of Scientific Fish Farming Practices among Members of Fish Farmers Producer Organizations

Molecular Mechanism of Extreme Hypoxia Tolerance Difference between Male and Female Adult Fish and Juvenile Fish of Acrossocheilus fasciatus by Transcriptomics

Qualitative Evaluation of Fish Fingers Prepared from Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and Pangasius (Pangasius pangasius) Stored at -18±2°C

Pulsed Feeding Regimes for the Rearing of Labeo rohita (Hamilton) Fry: A Climate Smart Approach

Survival and Non-specific Immune Parameters of Nursery Carp (Spawn to Fry) Fed with CIFA-Carp Starter

Influence of Photoperiod and Rearing Density of Fry in Production of Stunted Fingerlings of Catla catla (Hamilton)

Development of Fish Cracker from Indian Major Carp, Labeo catla