Ornamental Fish farming at NR&DCA, Gelephu…

The varied forms and fascinating beauty of some fishes have attracted the people from time immemorial and are named as “Ornamental fish”.Ornamental fishes are often called ‘living jewels’, this is because of their attractive colors, shapes, behavior, and sometimes peaceful nature (Jayansakar, 1998). The culture of ornamental fishes is called as aquariculture. The ornamental species are categorized into indigenous and exotic. There are more than 30,000 fish species reported around the world, of this about 800 belong to ornamental fishes. Most of the ornamental fishes survive in freshwater. They come under eight closely related families namely, Anabantidae, Callichthyidae, Characidae, Cichlidae, Cobitidae, Cyprinodontidae, Cyprinidae and Poeciliidae.

Initially, the ornamental fish was introduced in NR&DCA in the year 2012 as a sub-program under Research and Extension Division. It was re-introduced in 2017 as a regular program and its mainly for breeding purposes at the Centre. Currently, we have both native and exotic ornamental fishes at Centre. The ornamental fishes such as Gold fish, Angel fish, Koi carp and Molly fish were reared at Centre.

The most common ornamental fish known as goldfish (Carassiusauratus) makes the highest population in the Centre. Gold fish is a freshwater fish belonging to the family Cyprinidae of order Cypriniformes. Goldfish breeds vary greatly in size, body shape, fin configuration and coloration.

The breeding of Goldfish is in full swing at Centre which has started from January and the breeding activities are still ongoing till spawning season is over. So far, twenty males and sixteen females were used for breeding and more than 750 hatchlings/fry are produced till now, and we are expecting to breed more mature gold fish until the breeding season is over. Soon, we are planning to carry out the breeding of other ornamental fishes in upcoming seasons.

NR&DCA intends to produce thousands of high live qualities of fingerlings to start a venture of Ornamental fish farming in the country. In the near future, the Centre is planning to produce these fishes in a large scale and also to provide opportunities for the certain groups of people especially for school dropouts, woman, enthusiastic fish farmers and unemployed people to take up as a small business to enhance their livelihood. Providing hands-on training to farmers and school dropouts on ornamental fish breeding, management and aquarium construction are also in the pipeline.

Mrs. Renchen Lhamo,

Livestock Production Officer,

NR&DCA, Gelephu