author(s)
Ankur Rajbongshi, Raman Kumar Trivedi, Bipul Phukan and Sangipran Baishya

abstract
The fish seed being the major input for fish farming, there is always a growing demand for quality fish seeds. The uncertainty in the quantity and quality of riverine fish seed collection led to development of many carp hatcheries in West Bengal. But in these hatcheries, there has been large-scale mortality during the early stages and it may be due to lack of proper care in water quality management in hatcheries. A study was conducted to assess the water quality in carp hatcheries and it was observed that the most of the water parameters were within the prescribed range. But in the H-4, the dissolved oxygen, pH, free CO_2, total alkalinity, total hardness, total solid, total dissolved solid and turbidity were significantly higher than the other three hatcheries. Probably this was the reason for lower fertilization and survivality rate in this hatchery. Among the all four hatcheries the performance of Naihati hatchery (H-2) was comparatively better because of more congenial physico-chemical condition. The highest rate of fertilization and hatching was observed in H-2 (Naihati hatchery) which was significantly (P<0.05) higher than other three where as the fertilization and hatching percentage of H-4 (Faculty of Fishery Science) were significantly lower than the other three hatcheries.