Recently, a TikTok video by an Indonesian user went viral on social media.
In the video, the user showed how he grows and prepares his ikan keli or ikan lele.
The first part of the video shows how he dropped the group of ikan keli into his toilet bowl and proceeded to flush them into his septic tank, which is an underground chamber through which sewage flows for basic sewage treatment.
2 months later, the user then fishes out his fully grown ikan keli from the septic tank and then prepares to fry, serve and eat them.
Netizens were disgusted!
The video has gone viral and attracted plenty of attention from netizens who pledged never to eat ikan keli ever again after seeing the video.
“I shall never see ikan keli penyet again after this.”
“I love ikan keli. I saw that video. I can never eat it again. I hate y’all,” commented another user.
Another user said that they would boycott ikan keli after seeing the video.
Ikan keli are used to eat waste?
According to Appropedia, ikan keli or cat fish, are commonly used in septic tanks in Indonesia, to eat the waste and slow the tanks from filling up with solids.
“Aid agencies, individuals and governments have built many latrines in Indonesia, sometimes on a large scale during reconstruction. The latrines have septic tanks to break down the waste before the water is discharged,” they explained.
“However, septic tanks need to be desludged periodically – where the sludge is sucked out with a desludging truck. This can be a problem when no desludging truck is available, or when no dumping site is available. This leads to overflowing septic tanks, causing environmental and public health problems.”
Hence, a traditional solution for desludging septic tanks is placing freshwater catfish fingerlings into the septic tanks, to reduce the rate at which it fills with sludge.
“The catfish eat the sewage sludge. About 10 fingerlings may be placed in one septic tank. After a year, the catfish will have grown to a large size,” they added
Watch the video below:
Would you still eat ikan keli after watching the video?
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