The research team led by Professor Liang Xufang from the Mandarin Fish Research Center of HZAU made a breakthrough in the early breeding of mandarin fish. It can be bred two months earlier than that in normal way, so this will help Central China become less dependent on buying early fry from southern areas such as Guangdong. In addition, the survival rate of mandarin fish fry is greatly improved through the implementation of mandarin fish initial feeding technology, and it is expected to occupy the mandarin fish seed market in Central China.

One-month-old mandarin fish bred by the team

As a unique freshwater fish variety in China, Mandarin boasts high economic value. Its national output in 2021 is 370, 000 tons, with an output value of 30 billion yuan. However, mandarin fish has peculiar feeding habit. Since starting a diet, they feed on live fish fries and normally refuse dead bait or formula feed. Feeding on live fish over lifetime is extremely rare in fish species of the world and in global aquaculture, which not only results in high cost and insecure supply of feed, but also makes it very difficult to prevent and control diseases in mandarin fish aquaculture.

Along with the development of controlled aquaculture systems such as recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), the market’s demand for Mandarin fish that accept feeding domestication is increasing. Meanwhile, selling mandarin fish off the peak to get a better price requires breeding of it in early spring. Therefore, it is imperative to upgrade the feeding regime and breeding technology. In recent years, “Huakang No. 1” has been approved , and Liang’s team goes on with the breeding of a new variety of mandarin fish ---“HuakangNo. 2”, which can easily be domesticated to accept artificial feed. On April 5, 2021, the team successfully bred a batch of “Huakang No.2” fry, and in February, 2022, a new batch of it were successfully bred for the first time in early spring through the combination of temperature & light regulation and mature acceleration technology.

Mandarin fish seeds bred in February[Photo/ research team]

Professor Liu in this team noted that, “this breakthrough is significant to the annual breeding of Siniperca chuatsi, and accelerates the transformation in the aquaculture patterns of mandarin fish.”

This research result makes the local cultivation of early spring mandarin fish come true, and the new variety is also characterized by fast growth and easy domestication. At present, the traditional way of feeding habits domestication is carried out when mandarin larva extends to 3-5cm and it requires initial feeding of live bait fish, so the larva is difficult to grow and easily get disease. However, it turns out that, 60% of this batch of mandarin fish fry can eat bio-baits like artemia and compound aqua-feeds, which is a breeding breakthrough within lab environments.

The mandarin fish fry is feeding on bait fish.[Photo/research team]

What’s more, this achievement has altered the landscape in the mandarin fish industry. Once the mandarin fish initial feeding technology is mature and popularized, it will greatly reduce the difficulty of culturing mandarin fish, increase its production and promote green and high-quality cultivation of it.

Source: http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2022/0417/62980.shtml
Translated by: Liu Binbin
Supervised by: Wang Xiaoyan