VietNamNet Bridge - The engineers at the Southern Freshwater Aquaculture Breeding Center have succeeded in the artificial reproduction of ca ho (Catlocarpio siamensis), a species of fish listed in Vietnam’s Red Book.


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The farmers in Mekong Delta said that it was easy to catch ca ho weighing hundreds of kilograms half a century ago. However, the giant fish has gradually disappeared in the last 30 years and it has appeared in Vietnam’s Red Book as an endangered species.

Ca ho or Catlocarpio siamensis is the largest fish in Cyprinidae family, living on Mekong River. It was given the name ‘King of Fish’ because of its large size and weight. A fish could weigh up to 600 kilos and have the length of 3 meters. As the fish is delicious, it can be priced up to VND2 million per kilo.

The engineers at the Southern Freshwater Aquaculture Breeding Center have succeeded in the artificial reproduction of ca ho (Catlocarpio siamensis), a species of fish listed in Vietnam’s Red Book.
While ca ho is rare in the wild, there is a large population of ca ho at the Southern Freshwater Aquaculture Breeding Center in Tien Giang. More than 100 fish there, weighing tens of kilos, can reproduce and provide 300,000 fish breeders each year.

It took Thi Thanh Vinh and his co-workers five years to find the solution to ca ho conservation and reproduction.

After two years of searching, Vinh and his co-workers collected 70 parent fish and began their research. 

In 2005, the engineers succeeded with the multiplication of baby fish at the rate of 1 percent in pond and 13 percent in aquariums. However, the result could not satisfy the engineers. They decided to reconsider the process to find the reasons behind the low success rate.

“Ca ho is a wild species, living in water. Our aquarium was a static environment, which is not be the ideal environment for reproduction. There was not much natural food in the aquarium,” he explained.

In 2007, the team of scientists raised the success rate of fish reproduction to 50 percent in aquarium.

“The fish must be nine years old at least to begin reproduction, and they must weigh 15 kilos at least. The reproduction will fail if one of the two requirements is absent,” Vinh said.

In 2008, the center began selling baby fish to people. The rare and precious fish species listed in Red Book has been farmed for merchandise.

The center keeps three flocks of fish, including the flock of parent fish, including 90 fish, a reserve flock of 140 and hundreds of fish created through artificial reproduction.

Baby fish are priced at VND3,500-7,000. After three years of breeding, fish could weight up to 5-6 kilos. Ca ho is now bred in many localities from Ca Mau to Hanoi.


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