KLUANG: Ng Ah Phow used to be obsessed with collecting wild fish when he was young. He even rented a car to travel around the country, gathering his favourite wild beta and arowana species.
Now the 53-year-old, who has a fisheries science degree from National Taiwan University, has turned his passion into a successful business venture breeding arowana fish, including the endangered golden arowana.
Ng, reputed to be one of the biggest arowana breeders in the country, has about 20,000 fish in 300 ponds on his sprawling 40ha site in Layang-Layang here.
He noted that the golden arowana is an endangered species on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) list.
“I have been helping to keep this species alive by breeding it for the past 30 years as the golden arowana can only be found in Malaysia,” he said.
The other arowana species he is rearing includes the albino golden, multicoloured crossback, blue base crossback, platinum crossback and chilli red.
Ng said his passion for wild fish began when he started collecting wild beta at the age of 12.
Catch of the day: Ng holding an arowana at his farm in Layang Layang, Kluang. — THOMAS YONG/The Star
“When I got my driving licence, I rented a car to travel around the country. I went to Sarawak and even to Pontianak in Indonesia to collect wild species, including arowana, in the 1990s.
“I furthered my studies in Taiwan and ventured into a small fish farm,” he said, adding that he got a RM200,000 loan from his father for the project.
Ng said his fish venture in Taiwan paid off, and after seven years, he returned to Malaysia to breed arowana, setting up Aqualeader Aquarium Corp Sdn Bhd.
He also convinced his father to allow him to turn their 6ha of oil palm land into ponds, later expanding to 300 ponds.
“Under CITES regulations, you need a permit to sell the fish, and you can only sell the third generation. All my fish have a microchip in them and can be tracked anywhere in the world.
“This means I can only sell my arowana after the 11th year, as they take about five years to mature and lay eggs. Each fish can live up to 40 years,” he said, adding that the fish is highly sensitive to water, especially the pH level, and the environment.
Ng said the male fish keeps the eggs in its mouth for 60 days and only releases the fry once they have hatched.
However, in the last few years, a project near his farm has caused the water quality to deteriorate, resulting in tens of millions of ringgit in losses after the deaths of almost 4,000 arowanas, he said.
Ng now hopes the state government will assist him with relocating to a new 40ha site near Gunung Belumut, which has a good water source.
“If we do not act fast, I am worried that the condition will result in more of my arowanas dying.
“This will be a huge loss to the state and country, especially in arowana conservation,” he added.On the price of arowana, Ng said the most expensive was RM250,000, and most of his customers were from Japan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, the Philippines and the United States.
“An average fish fry between 15cm and 30cm can fetch between RM3,000 and RM15,000,” he said.
