Mudskippers are also known as flower jumps, jumping fish, mud monkeys. It belongs to the family Perciformes. There are 3 genera and 9 species in China, and the common species are mudskipper, large mudskipper, and green mudskipper.
First, the biological characteristics of mudskippers
(1) Morphological characteristics: the body of the mudskipper is long and flattened. The eyes are located in the anterior upper part of the head, protruding above the top of the head, the eyes are quite close, and the abdomen is mostly healed. The base of the pectoral fin is long and muscular, so it can jump out of the water to exercise.
(2) Living habits: Mudskippers are warm and warm coastal small fish. The body length is generally about 150 mm, most of which are about 100 mm. It inhabits coastal mud sand beaches or brackish water, and can crawl on shoals and shore rocks where there is water slip on the beach or at low tide, and quickly jump into the water or drill cave dwellings with the elastic force of the tail handle when frightened to escape predators.
Mudskippers can use the pectoral fin and tail handle to crawl or jump on the water surface, mudflats, shore rocks, the skin and tail are auxiliary respiratory organs, so they can live on the surface of the water for a long time, and their tolerance to harsh water environments is stronger than that of ordinary fish. Mudskippers have the habit of digging holes like yellow eels and perching. The depth and length of the pores vary according to the nature of the underlying soil, the soft mud layer is thick, the holes are deep and long, about 60 cm, and the pores can also be used as spawning rooms in addition to avoiding enemies.
Mudskippers are more suitable in seawater density between 1.01 and 1.02, the water temperature is 24 ~ 30 ° C to grow faster, in the summer when the water temperature is above 32 ° C, you can build a pergola around the pond, shade for them to avoid high temperatures. In winter, below 14 ° C, it hides in the tunnel, rarely comes out of activity, and has good weather for the sun, even in winter, it will come out to feed activities.
Mudskippers feed mainly on benthic diatoms. It is often seen feeding on benthic diatoms at the bottom of shoals and drainage channels at low tide. When the body is dried by the sun, it climbs in the water, and then swims out of the water to continue to suck the benthic diatoms.
(3) Reproductive habits: Hermaphrodites of mudskippers. Due to the large proportion of livers in mudskippers, the abdomen of mature males and females is very large in appearance, so it is not easy to distinguish sex, and the only way is to carefully observe the reproductive holes. The genital foramen are red, swollen and rounded for females, and the narrow elongations are pointed for males.
Second, increase aquaculture
(1) Seed source: The breeding season of mudskipper is from April to September, and the harvesting of natural fry is the most from June to August, especially after the high tide in early summer, in the shoals of the estuary into the sea, in the ponds and puddles formed by footprints, small hand nets are used to fish for seedlings 1.5 to 3 cm long.
(2) Breeding ponds: Each breeding pond area is 1000 ~ 10000 square meters is appropriate, generally 466.0 ~ 5333.6 square meters is more, too large management is inconvenient and difficult to put enough seedlings at a time, too few unfavorable hand mudskippers roost growth, unit area yield is not high. The pond embankment is similar to the bottom, similar to the shrimp pond, and the bottom of the pond should be higher than the low tide line and flat, so that the benthic diatom can be fertilized and sunburned to cultivate benthic diatoms. Each pool is equipped with 1 entrance and 1 drainage gate, and the bottom of the pool must be slightly inclined to the gate, and a deep ditch connecting the gate is set up in the center about 2 meters wide to facilitate drainage. The substrate is preferably soft clay, which is conducive to pore grooves and algae reproduction. Loam soil is secondary, and the pond embankment should be higher, or a purse seine or other escape facility should be added to prevent its escape and the invasion of other animals.
(3) Preparation before stocking: Mudskippers mainly feed on benthic diatoms, followed by blue-green algae, do not directly feed on rice bran, bean cake, peanut cake and fish pulp feed, no mutual cannibalism, only the good growth of algae can make mudskippers grow well, so how to make the bottom of the pond conducive to the growth and reproduction of algae is a problem that farmers need to solve. Therefore, before stocking, it is necessary to do a good job of cleaning the pond such as drying the bottom of the pond, applying base fertilizer, disinfection, and removing predators. Old fish and shrimp ponds that have been farmed for many years and have more organic matter should be stocked with less base fertilizer, and rice bran should be stocked after exposure to cracking, and water injection of 5 to 10 cm can be stocked. The newly built fish candy is about 40 kg per 667 square meters of chicken, pig manure and rice bran, and the water depth is 2 to 7 cm.
(4) Stocking: Fish fry caught or purchased are directly put into the grow-out pond. Generally, the body length of 5 to 10 cm is the rapid growth stage, and the growth above 30 cm is slower. The rearing time is generally about 8 months, because the mudskippers are gradually growing up and have the habit of drilling cave dwellings, so it is not easy to catch, and it is more difficult to be kept after stocking. Although mudskippers do not kill each other and can be stocked one after another, it is better to release them in a short period of time. The stocking capacity per 667 square meters is generally 2000 to 3500 tails, and the high-density stocking will grow slowly due to the lack of algae supply in the pond, which will eventually lead to the consequences of small individual size, low price, large cost, output cannot keep up, and low efficiency.