A Major Fish Farmer in Yuhang, Zhejiang, Seeks Transformation by Farming Hybrid Snakehead

Zhejiang Online, April 14 dispatch: "Hybrid snakehead fry, I want to reserve 1 million." A few days ago, Li Guoxu, a major farmer in Xinyu Village, Yunhe Subdistrict, Yuhang, Hangzhou, called the district fisheries administration station. He plans to stock all 100 mu of his fish ponds with hybrid snakehead.
Li Guoxu has raised snakehead for more than ten years. Starting last year, he gradually replaced his original local snakehead with hybrid snakehead.
Why switch species? Old Li told the reporter that besides being able to withstand high temperatures, the hybrid snakehead can also reduce wastewater discharge from the farm.
Li Guoxu did the math for the reporter: local snakehead eats frozen small fish, and the cost is about 9 yuan per jin of snakehead raised. When the weather is hot, the pond water must be changed once every one to two weeks; hybrid snakehead eats extruded feed, and the cost is only 7 yuan per jin raised, with the water needing to be changed only once or twice a year.
"When frozen small fish are put in as feed, the pond water gradually becomes turbid, and there is a problem of eutrophication. By contrast, extruded feed has a much smaller impact on water quality." The reporter followed him to inspect several fish ponds. In some ponds raising hybrid snakehead, the soil at the bottom could even be seen.
The area where Li Guoxu's fish ponds are located is the snakehead industrial park planned by Yunhe Subdistrict in 2011, with a total of more than 800 mu. The aquaculture wastewater here flows through ditches into a tailwater treatment pond. Since changing the snakehead species, Li Guoxu has found that much less wastewater is discharged.
Dai Yanping, a cadre from the Yunhe Subdistrict agricultural section who was conducting research at the farm, said that over the past two or three years, with strong promotion by the local government, many farmers have also begun switching to hybrid snakehead like Li Guoxu. "Agricultural non-point source pollution will have to be remediated sooner or later, and the environmental pressure facing the aquaculture industry will only grow. Rather than waiting until rectification is required before thinking about change, it is better to start planning the transformation and upgrading early," Li Guoxu said.