FISH BREEDING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4191, 31 May 1939, Page 10

FISH BREEDING

A LUCRATIVE HOBBY. FREAK TYPES SELL AT £2OO A FAIR. , Fish breeding.is .one of . Britain’s new industries, for which the modern fiat existence is largely responsible. Thousands in Europe and America keep fish where formerly dogs and cats were kept. One of the biggest fish farms in Britain belongs to a man who started a few years ago with a tiny bowl and a threepenny goldfish. He now possesses more than 250,000 specimens, ranging in price from 6d up to £lO. His six acre farpi is set in woodland, and the goldfish are housed in huge concrete ponds. Those that come from tropical waters are kept in heated 600 gallon glass tanks. To the average person all coloured fish that dart about in glass bowls come under the category of goldfish, but to the icthyologist, or fish expert, there is a vast difference between swardtails, guppies, black molls and Siamese fighters, and some differ as much in price. There is an astonishing variety; the all black, known as the Blackamoor; a spotted type called Calico; a very lovely shimmery specimen named the Blue Goldfish —one ol which was purchased recently by the Bristol Zoo for £so—and others. There are dozens of fish breeders all over Britain, and hundreds of people forage for fish food. One man, a cripple, has built a shack near a river and supplies breeders with buckets of daphnia (water fleas), from which activity he nets from £lO to £l2 a week!

Goldfish breeding is a great hobby, for by careful selection and mating, one can breed an infinite number of new varieties. It is impossible to tell when one of them will become popular and net the breeder hundreds of pounds. Alfons Heintze, a well known American breeder, started with a pair of black molls, lovely velvet looking fish with a streak of orange along the dorsal fin. A pair of them costs about nine shillings, but they multiply so rapidly that your money returns with considerable profit. Black molls have a brood of about 40 every month, and these may fetch anything from 9s to £2 a pair. Scores of women in London’s Mayfair district have coloured bowls and glass tanks let into their walls in which fish that harmonise in colour with their rooms swim vacantly to and fro. One can buy fish of almost any colour iridescent tetra, red hellberries, gold, green and blue striped zebra fish, and others with every hue of the rainbow. Then there are the freak type like the Lion Head, which has a sort of mane; anti the Fringetail, a pair of which may fetch as much as £2OO. It is more paying, however, to breed the commoner prolific varieties and have a big turnover. The chief difficulty about breeding fish is that most people know nothing about their habits, food and environment. American dealers sell a canned food made of fox and other fur bearing animals on which fish thrive; but a mixture of meal, dry skim milk, wheat, tomatoes, edible bone meal and salt also keeps them fit. They thrive too, on dried shrimps, worms, daphnia and all sorts of live food. It has been found that the purifying chemicals contained in tap water are inimical to goldfish; if such water is used it. is best to let it stand for a couple of ilays and then drain off as much as is needed. When tanks need replenishing rain water is best. If for any reason fish have to be lifted front one tank to another, never use the hands, as fish sicken at the human touch. In any case, hands tear their delicate scales, so use a fine net. Food for goldfish is cheap and plentiful. Let your tank have a good gravel and dirt base and in it embed fanwort (camaba), swimming arrowroot (a fine tape grass), false loosestrife (ludwigia) and anacharis. .Plants are necessary, as they throw off the oxygen needed by fish, And the best, way to keep your aquarium clean is to drop in a number of snails. They not only keep the place spotless but supply food for the young fish. The habits of fish, their changes, the way they build their nests, make friends and fight are exceedingly interesting. Sometimes they are subject to disease, and in the case of internal complaints very little can be done. They either recover or die without 'outside assistance. Even experts lose whole tanks because of illnesses they cannot control. But, generally speaking, fish are hardy, if kept under the right conditions. —P. M. Bradley in “Digest of World Reading."