Mrigal
Mrigal works the bottom. You feed the pond.
We will be straight with you on this one, because it is the page where a feed company has the most to gain from not being. Mrigal is a bottom-feeding detritivore. Nobody buys a separate grade for it, and we are not going to suggest you start. What it does is make the feed you have already bought for the rest of the pond go further.
What mrigal actually eats
Published culture accounts call mrigal an illiophage and stenophagous — a mud-eater with a narrow food range. Detritus and decayed vegetation form its principal food, with phytoplankton and zooplankton making up the rest. That is a different diet from every other fish on this site, and it is the reason mrigal is in the pond at all.
A carp polyculture is stocked in layers on purpose: a surface feeder, a column feeder and a bottom feeder, so that the pond's whole depth is worked rather than one band of it. Katla take the top, rohu the column, mrigal the bottom. The published reason for combining them is the more efficient use of those niches — and in a fed pond, the bottom is where the fines, the broken pellet and the organic matter the pond generates all end up.
Stocking ratios and yields- No separate gradeFeed the pond for its surface and column fish. Mrigal is not a reason to buy a different bag.
- Detritus and decayed vegetationIts published principal food, with plankton making up the remainder.
- 20–30% of a three-species pondThe bottom share of the stocking mix; 15–20% where six species are stocked.
- Pond preparation matters moreA narrow feeder depends on a productive bottom. That is management, not a bag.
Feeding stage guide
Which grade, at which stage.
This is the pond's progression, not mrigal's own. In a polyculture one ration goes in and the species divide it by layer, so the grade you are on is set by the surface and column fish you stocked alongside.
- Hatchery / fry Aqua Mash Mash
- Nursery Aqua Plus 0.5–0.6 mm · 10 kg
- Early fingerling Aqua Shakti 1 mm · 10 kg
- Fingerling Aqua Shakti 1 mm · 20 kg
- Grower Aqua Pro 2 mm · 35 kg
- Large fish / table size Aqua Grow 3 mm · 35 kg
Mrigal reaches 600–700 g in the first year, the smallest of the three major carps, so the same 3 mm ceiling applies to it as to rohu and katla — and matters less, because mrigal is not the fish the ration is sized for. The traditional supplementary feed in this system is a 1:1 mixture of rice bran and oil cake given to the pond as a whole.
Stocking, survival and what to expect
Mrigal normally attains 600–700 g in its first year, depending on stocking density and management, against 700–800 g for rohu and 1–1.2 kg for katla over the same twelve months. It is the slowest grower of the three, and it is also the hardiest.
Published survival is 30–50% through the nursery and 60–70% through fingerling rearing, and mrigal generally survives better than both katla and rohu at that stage. If you are working out how many fry to buy, that difference runs in your favour here.
The stocking figures are the same shared ones as for the other carps: 3–10 million spawn per hectare in earthen nurseries and 10–20 million in cement, around 30% of a combined 200,000–300,000 fry per hectare through fingerling rearing, and a combined 4,000–10,000 fingerlings per hectare in grow-out. Grow-out is usually one year.
- 600–700 g in year oneThe smallest of the three major carps, and the slowest to put on weight.
- Better survival than bothPublished as surviving fingerling rearing better than katla or rohu.
- Around 30% of fingerling stockReared alongside the other carps at a combined 200,000–300,000 fry per hectare.
- Ration follows the pondSet the daily amount from the biomass of the whole stock, not from mrigal alone.
Common questions
What mrigal farmers ask us.
Which of your grades should I buy for mrigal?
None of them specifically. Buy for the rohu, katla or tilapia you have stocked with it and feed the pond one ration. Mrigal feeds on the bottom, on detritus and decayed vegetation plus whatever settles out of that ration. A feed company telling you to buy a separate bag for your bottom feeder is selling you something you do not need.
Will mrigal eat a floating pellet?
It is not what mrigal is built for. Katla feed at the surface and rohu in the column, so they take the pellet while it floats; mrigal works the layer below, including particles that break up and settle. That division is the whole point of stocking three species instead of one, and it is why we would rather explain the system than claim the pellet suits every fish in it.
Then why stock mrigal at all?
Because the bottom of the pond is productive and otherwise unused. Stocking a bottom feeder at 20–30% turns detritus and settled organic matter into fish, which is yield you are not paying extra feed for. It also survives the fingerling stage better than katla or rohu, so a given number of fry returns more fish.
Do you guarantee a growth rate?
No, and we would not trust anyone who did. Pond conditions, stocking density, water quality and management all move the result. What we hold to is the specification: every batch is checked against it before release.