Four Major Issues to Solve in Snakehead Fish Farming

With the continuous development of the aquaculture industry today, farmed fish is one of the farming projects that attracts more attention, because fish farming has low investment costs and high returns. Although there are certain risks, compared with other aquaculture industries, the risks of fish farming are much smaller.

What Is Snakehead Fish

The snakehead fish has a cylindrical body, with a body length reaching up to 60 cm. Its head is long and flat at the front, the body is black, the belly is grayish white, and the sides of the body have irregular spots. The dorsal fin and anal fin are very long and have no hard spines, the pelvic fins are very small, and the caudal fin is rounded. Snakehead fish often inhabit the aquatic grass areas of rivers and lakes, and are especially fond of living in silt zones flooded by floodwater. Snakehead fish are ferocious by nature, highly reproductive, and have an enormous appetite, often able to eat all the other fish in a certain lake or pond. Snakehead fish can also slide on land and migrate to other waters to seek food, and can live out of water for as long as 3 days. As early as two thousand years ago, it was listed in the Shennong Bencao Jing together with stone honey, bee larvae, beeswax (propolis), oysters, turtle shells, mantis egg cases, sea clams, hard clams, carp, and others as a top-grade insect-fish product. 

Snakehead fish is a common edible fish in China, with a large individual size, fast growth, and high economic value. Snakehead fish has few bones, a high meat yield, and is rich in nutrients, containing more protein than chicken and beef. As a medicinal food, snakehead fish has effects such as removing blood stasis and promoting tissue regeneration, nourishing and conditioning the body. After surgery, eating snakehead fish has the effect of promoting muscle growth and replenishing blood, promoting wound healing, and it has very rich nutritional value.

The Four Major Issues to Solve in Snakehead Fish Farming

In recent years, the snakehead fish market has been strong, and pond farming of snakehead fish has gradually risen. At a time when carp farming is sluggish, farming snakehead fish has brought considerable economic benefits to fish farmers.

1. Pond selection: The pond for farming snakehead fish should not be too large; generally an area of 3 mu to 5 mu is preferable. The pond water depth is 1.5 m to 2.0 m, the bottom mud thickness is 15 cm to 20 cm, the water source is sufficient, and drainage and filling are convenient.

2. Fingerling stocking: The size of the stocked fingerlings is determined according to the size of the commercial fish on the market. At present, snakehead fish with an individual weight of 0.7 kg to 2.0 kg sell well, so the size of the stocked fingerlings should be 75 g to 100 g per fish. The stocking density should be determined based on factors such as feed sources and rearing techniques; generally 2000 to 2500 fingerlings are stocked per mu. At the same time, 400 to 500 bighead carp fingerlings can be stocked together, with a fingerling size of 100 g to 150 g per fish.

3. Feed feeding: Snakehead fish is a ferocious carnivorous fish that eats both live food and dead food, mainly feeding on small wild trash fish such as small crucian carp. In artificial rearing, a timed and fixed-point domestication feeding method is adopted. Feed twice a day, at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Generally, after 5 to 7 days of stocking, the fish can all float to the surface to compete for food. When feeding, carefully observe the feeding situation of the snakehead fish near the feeding platform. If there are few snakehead fish near the feeding platform and the competition for food is not intense, it indicates that the fish are already full and feeding can be stopped.

4. Rearing management: Snakehead fish has a large appetite and produces a lot of excrement, which can quickly make the pond water fertile. Fertile water can cause plankton to multiply in large numbers, making it very easy to cause oxygen deficiency in the pond water. Therefore, special attention should be paid to changes in dissolved oxygen in the water. Once oxygen deficiency occurs, the aerator should be turned on in time. If the oxygen deficiency is relatively serious, a partial water-surface killing method can be adopted, that is, sprinkling trichlorfon on the water surface 2 m to 3 m from the pond edge, at a concentration of 0.5 ppm to 1.0 ppm. Snakehead fish has strong disease resistance and rarely gets sick during artificial rearing. However, in the late autumn period, if management is poor, feed is insufficient, or the water environment is seriously deteriorated, snakehead fish can also get sick. Therefore, during this stage, careful observation is essential, and once disease occurs, it should be treated promptly.

Living Habits of Snakehead Fish  

1. Living habits: Snakehead fish is a bottom-dwelling fish with an extremely wide range of habitats. Therefore, any place where frogs, loaches, crucian carp, and various aquatic insects live in groups is a place where snakehead fish like to inhabit. Snakehead fish mostly lurk in shallow water at a depth of 1 m. The survival temperature of snakehead fish is 0-41°C, and the optimum temperature is 16-30°C. When the spring water temperature rises above 8°C, snakehead fish begin to become active and swim from deep water to shallow areas to seek food. When the water temperature is above 20°C, they grow relatively quickly. In summer, when the weather is stuffy and hot and rain falls, they often jump out of the water and crouch on the moist ground by the bank. In autumn, when the water temperature drops to 12°C, they stop feeding; when it drops below 6°C, they move to deep water. In winter, when the water temperature is too low, they bury themselves in mud to overwinter, and as long as there is water under the ice, they can completely overwinter. Snakehead fish can tolerate low oxygen. They can also survive in turbid, oxygen-deficient water. When the water is oxygen-deficient, the fish can expose its head above the water surface and, by means of the suprabranchial organ, directly absorb oxygen from the air for gas exchange.  

2. Feeding habits: Snakehead fish is a ferocious carnivorous fish. It mainly feeds on small fish, shrimps, frogs and tadpoles, aquatic insects, and other aquatic animals. Depending on the size of the fish, the season, and the water environment, the specific types of food ingested vary. However, no matter what, its nature as a carnivorous nutritional type will not change.  

3. Growth: Fingerlings hatched in the same year are generally about 150 mm long and weigh about 50 g. The 2-year-old fish is in an accelerated body-length growth stage and grows vigorously. After 2 years of age, it shows a declining trend with increasing age. When the water temperature is 20-25°C, growth is relatively fast.  

4. Reproduction  

① Age at sexual maturity: In the Yangtze River basin, generally 2 winters of age; locally, they generally begin to mature and spawn in the third year.  

② Fecundity: The fecundity of an ordinary individual is 10,000-30,000 eggs, and the largest is 50,000-60,000 eggs. Individuals of different ages and sizes and snakehead fish in different water bodies have different fecundity.

Snakehead Fish Rearing Techniques  

1. Pond construction: Choose an east-west-oriented rectangular pond. The pond bottom should be soil, the pond depth should be 2-2.5 m, and the water depth should be 1.5-2 m. Anti-escape facilities should be installed at the inlet and outlet. Apply 100-150 kg of quicklime per mu 15 days before farming for thorough disinfection.  

2. Fingerling stocking: Before the fingerlings are put into the pond, soak them in 3%-5% salt water for 10-15 minutes, then put them into the pond. For fingerlings with a body length of 10-14 cm, the stocking density is 9000-10000 fish per mu; for fingerlings of 16-20 cm, the stocking density is 8000 fish per mu.  

3. Daily management: Pay attention to observing the feeding, activity, and disease trends of snakehead fish as well as environmental changes. In spring, change 4/5 of the pond water each week. In the high-temperature season, make a small water change every 3 days and a large water change every 7 days. Install anti-escape nets at the inlet and outlet. It is better for the pond ridge to be more than 50 cm above the water surface. For the discharged sewage, necessary sewage treatment should be carried out.  

4. Feed feeding: The feed for raising snakehead fish includes artificial compound feed, small trash fish from freshwater or seawater, and offal from livestock and poultry after slaughter. Before feeding small trash fish, they need to be sorted, and fish with hard spines, such as yellow catfish, should be removed. Before feeding, use tapping as a signal to gather distant fish near the feeding platform to reduce feed waste. The initial feeding amount is 10% of body weight, and later it can be appropriately reduced to about 5% of body weight. It should be fed one spoonful at a time, so that less feed is wasted. Feeding should follow the "four fixed" principle, and 3-4 feeding points should be chosen for each pond. Using an intensive farming method, with a body length of more than 10 cm, after 8-9 months of farming, the survival rate is 75%-80%, the average body weight is 0.5-0.7 kg, and the yield per mu is 4000-5000 kg. Plant some aquatic plants in the pond, such as cattail, Vallisneria, and alligator weed, with the planting area controlled at 1/3 of the pond area.

Although the aquaculture industry is developing relatively well now, if you want to achieve a certain level of success in aquaculture, you still need to spend a lot of effort. For example, in snakehead fish farming, before farming we must first understand some of its living habits and farming techniques, so as to avoid unnecessary risks during the farming process!