Culture of snakehead fish (Channa striata) in Vietnam has traditionally been conducted in ponds and hapa using low-value fish exploited in wild freshwater river, coastal area and the East sea. The massive use of low-value fish as feed for snakehead culture may led to over exploitation of low-value fish, especially in the Mekong basin, subsequent to impact on fishery resource and biodiversity. Convertion of low-value feed into commercial pellet feed for snake head become urgently. We conducted a eight-year study to a) optimize the weaning protocol to enable hatchery-reared fish to adapt to formulated feeds, b) determine protein, lipid and energy requirement for grow-out stage, c) assess digestibility of different feed ingredients, d) develop formulated feeds that maximize the amount of plant proteins to reduce fish meal usage, e) replacement of fishmeal by soybean meal in supplementation of soluble fish attractant and, alpha-galactosidase and Mannan oligosaccharides (MOs) to enhance the immune response of snakehead and f) conduct the on-farm trial of formulated feed vs. low-value fish as a demonstration for farmer. The optimal procedure for weaning snakehead in the hatchery was established, beginning weaning at 17 days post-hatch and replacing 10% of low value-fish with formulated feed per day for 10 days. Hatchery-reared and weaned snakehead results were used for laboratory feeding trials to identify maximum levels of soybean meal, rice bran and cassava meal, soybean protein concentration (SPC) as replacements for fish meal in snakehead diets. Up to 40% of fish meal could be replaced by plant proteins in snakehead grow-out diets. Formulated feed for grow-out stage was developed based on fish nutritional requirement and digestibility of ingredients. Pond grow-out trials indicated that there was no significant difference on fish growth performance as well as fillet sensory quality between fish fed new formulated diets and low-value fish. On-farm trial with volunteer farmers on formulated feed as demonstration was done successfully. The feed formulation and projects outcomes were delivered to major feed mills in the Mekong Delta which could be applied into commercial scale. In 2014, over 90% farmers changed from using low-value fish to using formulated feed while less than 2% of farmer used commercial pellet feed in 2008. The shift into commercial pellet feed presumably reduced the exploitation of low-value fish in the Mekong River and increased the potential for sustainability of snakehead production.