Everyone wants advanced fingerlings as early after the rains as possible. They fetch a good price and make marketable fish production possible in seasonal ponds. One way to produce early season advanced fingerlings is to grow them in perennial ponds and store them at high density with minimal feeding for the coming year. Whe such "stunted" fingerlings are stocked into ponds with good feed they grow fast and can be marketed in about 6-8 months.

Common carp is a foreign fish and there are several varieties. The variety used in Western Orissa is the fully scaled carp, which suits the tropical climate. Common carp lives and feeds near the pond bottom and can be grown with the Indian major carps, catla, rohu and mrigal as a 'polyculture' (which means growing many different types of fish together). It can also be grown alone, as a 'monoculture' in rice fields with high dykes that retain water.

In order to provide practical and effective technical guidance for shrimp hatchery management, it is necessary to establish a set of better management practices (BMPs) which underpin an effective hatchery production system. This document is not a complete manual on the management of P. monodon hatcheries but concentrates on the implementation of BMPs for the hatchery covering all of the critical stages and processes in the production cycle, which are currently believed to be causing problems in Vietnamese hatcheries. 

These guidelines provide advice on producing fish seed of the Indian major carps in hapas within ponds to improve survival.

It was common to believe that fish cannot be cultured in seasonal ponds. However, fish can be produced in any pond of any size, anywhere in Orissa, provided that the water quality is good enough. A small and shallow pond that retains water for two months can be used for raising fry. A larger and deeper pond holding water for three to four months can be used for fingerling production.

If the place where fish live is good and healthy, fish rarely die from diseases. If we stress fish by roughly handling them, by keeping too many together, or by not feeding them well, they may suffer from disease. Depending on the disease, we may see lots of fish die in a short time, small numbers of fish deaths every day, reduced growth, marks on the fish, or a change in the way they look or swim.

Fresh fish is so popular in much of eastern India that harvesting will usually draw a crowd of pond side customers. Marketing is no problem so long as the quantities are small. When bulk quantities are fished out a trader, wholesaler or a middleman may take the fish and depending on the distance, time of the day and season, transport them to the market with or without ice.

When people talk about growing fish, many say their biggest problem was getting started. In Delhi in April 2003 farmers and officials met with policy makers and said that one of their most pressing recommendations for change was to the way information is made available. They asked for a single-point, under-one-roof center, near to their place, where they could get much of what they needed.

These guidelines illustrate good practice for broodstock handling and management using practices that are suitable for small-scale operations. This document is also available in Oriya.

Self-recruiting species are defined as aquatic animals that can be harvested from farmer managed aquatic systems without regular stocking. This may include indigenous or introduced, small or larger species. Identified self-recruiting species in the Red River Delta includes exotic species (tilapia), large (snakehead, walking catfish and river catfish) and small (Anabas and Carassius auratus) indigenous fish species and non-fish species (freshwater shrimp and crabs).