Fish of many colours float and dive in the water: red, blue, orange, black, brown and yellow. Goldfish, comet, koi carp, oranda gold, silky koi, molly, guppy, angel and other colourful fish are a delight to the eye. These are the fish that decorate home aquariums.

They are being farmed by Shihab Uddin, a young entrepreneur in Kaliganj, Jhenaidah. Shihab hopes colourful fish will brighten his life. Through the farm he is paying for his own studies and those of his brother and sister, so his poor father no longer has to struggle to meet his children's education costs.

Shihab's home is in Hasanhati village of Rakhalgachhi union in Kaliganj upazila. He is a second-year management undergraduate at Jashore MM College. His sister Farzana Yasmin studies at university, and his younger brother Farhad Uddin is in class nine.

Shihab said that at the start of 2018 he set up a small ornamental fish farm on a piece of abandoned land in the family yard. Buying fry, feed and other work cost him Tk 34,000. Within a year he had sold fish worth nearly Tk 1 lakh. This year he has released brood fish into a pond to produce young and expand the business. He said he liked the colourful fish he saw in aquarium shops. Curious, he asked about prices and learned they were quite expensive. The shopkeeper told him the fish were brought from abroad, but were now also being farmed in the country. That is where the idea came from.

At the start of the year he dug a pit, lined it with polythene to make a tank and released a few colourful fish. Within two months they had grown quite large, and his enthusiasm grew. He then collected more brood fish from Kalaroa in Satkhira, bringing back 160 fish of various species. To raise them he had to build five more tanks. In April 2018 fry were released into the six tanks, most of which are 10 feet long and 5 feet wide. The fish grew and at one point laid eggs. The eggs produced fry, which he sells in the market. Aquarium traders now buy fish from him.

Shihab said that at the start of this month he began farming the fish in a pond as well as the six tanks. He has released 1,500 female and 150 male fish there. They will grow within three to four months, after which he will hatch eggs in the tanks and sell the fry. He hopes to sell several lakh taka worth of colourful fish this time.

The farm now has brood fish of 16 species, including goldfish, comet, koi carp, oranda gold, silky koi, molly, guppy and platy. One fish will produce about 3,000 fry a year, and the fish can be sold once they reach 3 to 4 inches. "At first people in the area laughed at this farming. Everyone thought it was a whim of mine. But I did not give up. Now, besides local people, fisheries officials are coming to see the fish. Many who come to see the farm buy fish," Shihab said.

Rabiul Islam, senior upazila fisheries officer (Sadar) of Meherpur Sadar, who was transferred from Jhenaidah, called it a good initiative. He told Prothom Alo that the fish are farmed like other fish; only some different feed is needed. But he urged caution about the market. There is little scope for many people to take up this farming, he said, because apart from decorating homes these fish have little use, so the market is not very large.

A voluntary organisation has given Shihab financial help for the farm. Shihab said it would help if the government offered training and easy loans for this work. If all goes well, he hopes the farm will change his life.

Kaliganj upazila fisheries officer Saidur Rahman has seen Shihab's farm and liked the unusual initiative. He told Prothom Alo: "This fish can be farmed in the climate of our region. Shihab will be given all-round support, including advice and loans."

Source: Prothom Alo. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.