Innovative Techniques in the Mass Production of Freshwater Ornamental Fishes in the Philippines I. Induce Spawning

The Philippines is having a hard time exporting its aquaculture produced food fishes due to the high cost of feeds making it difficult to compete with its Asian neighbors.   Fortunately, the production of ornamental fishes involves only the hatchery and nursery operations where less feed is required. This advantage makes the freshwater ornamental fish one commodity that has the soundest export potential for the country. 

Another advantage of producing freshwater ornamental fish is its high selling price as compared to its food fish counterpart.  For example, the cheapest aquarium fish being traded is the ordinary swordtail. Its wholesale price is about Php 3 each as compared to the price of tilapia fingerlings at Php 0.40 and milkfish fingerlings at Php 1.00 each.  Nice six inches koi costs as much as Php 100,000 each and the red arowana fingerlings at Php150, 000 each.  Ordinary goldfishes wholesales at Php 8 each while the ordinary male guppies sells at Php 15 each.  The time, effort and cost to produce these ornamental fishes are almost similar to producing food fishes.

Producing the freshwater ornamental fish can be a backyard enterprise.  Since the marketable size of most ornamental fishes is only around 1-2 inches size, little space is needed.  One only needs a few aquaria to breed them and some small cement tanks to serve as nursery tanks.  There are at present several backyard ornamental fish farms located right in Metro Manila and in some major cities in the country.

It was the fish hobbyists who initiated the techniques in breeding freshwater ornamental fishes in the Philippines.  The method that they developed themselves is based mostly on experience and therefore, each one claims that they have "secrets" in breeding a particular fish species.  It is for this reason that up to now, the production of ornamental fishes in the Philippines has been on a hit and miss method.

The unpredictable production level  is also the reason why the Philippines cannot export freshwater ornamental fishes.  

It is therefore imperative that commercial techniques for the production of ornamental fishes whether for backyard or commercial scale be developed for the industry to flourish. 

The techniques that will be be discussed in this paper is not new as far as  food fish aquaculture is concerned  where much research has been done.  However, Its application to freshwater ornamental fish is new.

I.  Induced Spawning of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes         

 Artificial propagation techniques have revolutionized aquaculture and have made it possible to mass-produce fingerlings for a wide variety of food fishes.   It has mass-produce fish species which are not known to reproduce in captivity.  The technique was started with the Chinese and Indian carps in the 1960’s and is now employed in various species of fishes from catfishes to other riverine fish species.

In principle, the environment triggers the fish to produce its inherent gonadotrophin in its blood and effect spawning.  The induce spawning technique no longer depends on the environment; instead, gonadotrophin is injected to the fish to increase its blood gonadotrophin level and finally effect ovulation and spawning.

So far, the technique of induced spawning is employed for the mass propagation of some ornamental fishes such as: Hammerhead shark (Pangasianodon hypopthalmus), Hi-fin shark (P. sanitwongsei), Tin-foil barb (Barbonymous swanenfeldii), rainbow shark (Labeo erythururus), Bala shark (Balantiocheilus melanopterus),

Pacu (Piaractus brachypomum), Red Tail Shark (Labeo bicolor), Golden shark (Leptobarbus hoevenii), and Rainbow shark (Epalzeorhynchos frenatus)

For other species like the Koi (Cyprinus carpio) and goldfishes (Carassius auratus), even if they spawn naturally, the induce spawning technique is employed to have better control of specific strains and varieties.

The induce spawning technique permits the incubation and hatching of eggs and the rearing of seeds under controlled and weather-independent conditions. With this method up to 90 percent of the eggs produced can be hatched and raised to viable fingerlings. In natural spawning, the survival rate in is generally much less than one percent of the eggs produced.

The basic procedure in the induced spawning of fishes is as follows:

1.  Selection of Breeders:

      Females should have large distended belly & protruding reddish genitals

      Males should contain milt

2.       Weigh the Breeders

3.   Compute for Rate of Injection

4.   Inject Fish

5.   Strip Female

6.   Strip Male

7.   Fertilize (Mix eggs & milt)

8.   Incubate Eggs

9.   Larval Rearing

4.