predatory fish (eel)
1. Eel
Eel (eel), although it was not like fish, in truth, including economically important fish species in Indonesia. However, eels are also classified as wild fish are hooked small fish prey (seeds). Eels feared as a predator of the seeds for living fully in the water with the fish that are kept. These animals are hiding in a muddy pond or make holes in the embankments of the pond. When hungry, eel pond surface in search of food.
Eels have elongated round body and a dorsal, caudal and anal fins are only slightly visible. Despite belonging to a group of fish but the shape of his head did not look like fish gills and tutuo very small.
Eels have a body covered with very slippery mucus that many scales instead of body armor. Every now and then head to surface water to inhale oxygen. as nocturnal animals, eels actively foraging at night.
In nature, living in mud eel ponds, rice fields, marshes and at times a little or a gutter. In Indonesia, since 1979, began to be cultivated eels and one export commodity. Eel Sentra in Indonesia is the provincial IN Yogyakarta and West Java, while in other areas are shelters-eel eels caught from the wild or as a post shelter.
Generally recognized three kinds of eel, which is the swamp eel, eel rice fields or ponds, and eel times / sea. Frequently encountered type of eel is an eel rice fields or ponds. Eel pond has a large body size could even for a toddler's arm with a body length of 60 cm. Systematics are as follows:
Class: Pisces
Subclass: Teleostei
Order: Synbranchoidae
Family: Synbranchidae
Genus: Synbranchus
Species: Monopterus albus / alba Fluta (eel rice); Macrotrema caligans (eel rice: in West Java; eel Dami: Central Java); Synbranchus bengalensis (swamp eel).
Eels are found in ponds or rice fields at high or low lying areas. Eels hemaprodite properties ie experiencing a change in sex than females (when small, measuring less than 35 cm long) and a male (when a large, body length of more than 40 cm). Eels also has properties in a state where hungry cannibals.
Control
Existing swimming eel eels are usually marked with holes. This hole is a "home" place to live eels. Holes are made eel pond is leaking even sometimes make the dike collapsed. Eels that are incubating eggs or caring for children is marked by the number of foam at the mouth of the hole.
Control efforts difficult because of eels including eel hiding in a hole or mud base. There are farmers who spread poison / tuba to kill the eels in the process of draining the pond. Suggested toxins are the root of tubal or saponin (from the tea flower material). In addition, many also are trying to catch eels alive for consumption because the meat is delicious. This way is more advisable though less effective.
How to catch eels are generally done is to use bare hands or a special gear for eels. Catching up with the hand is possible if the pond bottom mud dried and flip-flops. Usually eel will come out and stay arrested. If using an eel catcher, could be given fishing bait minnow or frog child. Rod inserted into the hole eel
and the hungry will eat eel bait fishing line is then drawn so that the eels carried out of the hole. Other fishing gear such as trap / posong, netting / mesh soft-edged. If using a trap, bait is placed inside and Bubu Bubu planted in the mud in the afternoon. Bubu was appointed the next morning. In West Sumatra, a popular fishing eels are using fish trap called Bubu.
source: Khairul Amri and ToguanSihombing, PT. GramediaPustakaUtama, 2008
