Bottom Lines

The freshwater variety may either be food fish or merely ornamental fish. In Asia, popular food fishes include Tilapia, carps, catfishes, freshwater eels, perch, snakeheads (Haluan) and one endemic in Cotabato area called “pigek”, one costly fish.

Popular ornamental fishes include goldfish, cichlids, sharks (actually catfish family), mollies, guppies, barbs,arowana, arapaima, etc. Flowerhorns belong to the cichlids. I prefer to deal on freshwater tropical fishes because of its familiarity in the pet market.

Breeding

Tropical fish may differ in reproduction. It is either a live bearer or a egg layer. In  live bearers, you don’t get so much problem in breeding your fish. They produce their youngs with the least of human intervention. In short, even if you leave them in tanks or aquariums, live bearers reproduce by themselves. As breeder, your only concern is to separate the young ones from the bigger ones to avoid cannibalism. Aside from potential food for their parents, separation also increase survival rate. Popular live bearers are the guppies, mollies, swordtails and platy varieties.

On the one hand, egg-layers are the rest of the tropical varieties like the goldfish, cichlids, sharks, barbs, arowana and even plecostomos.

Strangely, egg-layer varieties have several reproductive habits. For example, the barbs and goldfish. Both are considered egg-scaterers because when spawning, the female looks for a vegetation or aquatic grasses where the fertilized eggs are released and scaterred. Other breeders use yarn as replacement medium. The male simultaneously fertilizes the eggs as they are released from the female.

Some cichlids, like tilapia, blue kennai, tangerines, yellow prince, etc. are mouth-breeders. Meaning, after the female lays her eggs, the male usually collects the eggs and incubate the same in his mouth for a few weeks until the young ones are released where they are now allowed to feed on their own…Arowana, which is of a different variety, is also a mouth breeder. However, breeding it remains expensive because one needs a number of breeders to start production

Plecostomos or janitor fish, digs in a cave or a hole along fishpond banks where the eggs, usually protected and contained by a thin membrane hanging inside the breeding cave or hole.

Bettas or fighting fish and gourami are bubble-nesters. The male creates bubbles where the females deposit the fertilized eggs after spawning.

Other species, like angel fish and oscar, are egg-layers of the adhesive type. While spawning, the female fish plants the eggs on a smooth-surface stone or medium where eggs adhere until hatching…Commercial breeders sometimes use smooth ceramic tiles as medium in breeding angels and oscars.

Well, one thing I’ve learned in freshwater tropical fish-breeding is that if you try your hand for the fun of it, then its all right. But if you venture on commercial breeding, you have to do it large scale. Meaning, you’ve got to input capital and aim for a profitable breeding. For starters, you will need at least a hundred pairs of each variety of breeders. The likes of angelfish, goldfish, barbs and danios. For koi, oscars and bigger varieties, you need to have at least fifty breeders to choose from. For mollies and guppies, a minimum of five hundred breeders will do for a start.  For the life-support system like aquariums, tanks,  ponds and other accessories entails added cost too.  With these facilities and animals, you can now start your fish breeding adventures – only for local market. For export ventures, you need ten-fold of the facilities aforementioned…

The governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and perhaps, Thailand, extend support to freshwater ornamental fish breeding through financing and technical assistance and annual export earnings run to millions of dollars. These countries are known exporters of ornamental fish. In the Philippines, the business seemed none of the present priority of the government. Its a potential dollar-earner and national leaders do not recognize it as such.  Fillipinos tend to  export  human resources so that they could bring back dollars when they return. These same human resources could have solved most of our domestic woes.  What a pathetic state of affairs.

Southeast Asia is endowed with a climate highly conducive for tropical fish-breeding. We have the optimal water temperature, alkalinity and natural foods for nourishment of fish larvae. Bottom line is, we must take advantage of this natural endowment.

European fish breeders use their underground basements as breeding areas to control water temperature. They also use water heaters and laboratories for the natural foods production.  Imagine breeding tropical fishes in places like Germany, Norway and UK – but they can – successfully at that. Indeed, if there’s a will, there’s a way….