Ornamental fish farms: Aquaculture’s next big trend?

Ornamental fish farms: Aquaculture’s next big trend?

Source: Daily Inquirer

6/7/2015

Fishkeeping—part art, part science—is now the world’s most popular hobby after photography.

Globally valued at $15 billion and growing by 14 percent yearly, the ornamental fish trade is aquaculture’s sunrise industry.

So why isn’t the Philippines farming ornamental fish?

While tilapia retails for P80 per kilo, ornamental fish can be sold for as much as P20,000 per kilo.

Gram for gram, they eat about the same amount of food.

Due to waning stocks, only 10 percent of ornamental freshwater fish are caught in the wild—bold cichlids from the Great African Rift Lakes, striped angelfish from peat-filled Amazonia, and so on.