Developing alternative fish species (barramundi/sea bass Lates calcarifer) for indoor warmwater re-circulating aquaculture

Description

The main objective is to acquire barramundi brood fish and develop sound larval rearing techniques, so that our Canadian aquaculturists will not have to depend on regular fingerling importation from Australia or Asia. Maintaining our own fingerling stocks further reduces risk potentials and also ensures local producers a consistent supply and quality year-round. Export market for fingerlings is a potential. This project will require sound collaboration with two private aquaculture companies, two government agencies, a provincial aquaculture association and an "Aquaculture (research) Centre of Excellence", working together to develop barramundi/sea bass broodfish and proficiently produce fingerling seedstock. This initial research is paramount and proactive, so that a local inventory of barramundi / sea bass seedstock could be made available to private indoor commercial aquaculturists in Canada. In this ACRDP proposal, the planned research is to adapt proven barramundi/sea bass hatchery techniques and practices (common to Australian indoor recirculation and Asian outdoor recirculation) and apply them to our Canadian systems. Feeds, feeding rates, stocking densities, grading, and hormonal injections have all been worked out for barramundi/sea bass. The final outcome of this project will be to provide adequate public information, so warmwater aquaculturists in Canada might consider rearing barramundi/sea bass as an alternate warmwater fish species. (For information purposes, growth of barramundi/sea bass from a fingerling to plate size can be achieved in less than six months. Barramundi/sea bass can be cultured in either fresh or salt water, but the broodstock must be reared/spawned in saltwater).

Program Name

Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program (ACRDP)

Year(s)

2007 - 2010

Ecoregion(s)

National

Principal Investigator(s)

Doug Geiling
Email: GeilingD@dfo-mpo.gc.ca