Fishellaneous Items

This month's Fishellaneous Items section contains two articles written for Aquanews covering non-CRSP aquaculture activities. The Peru article was donated by CRSP participant Konrad Dabrowski, while the update on Malaysia was donated by Aquanews subscriber TJ Tan.

Aquaculture Update from Malaysia

by TJ Tan

Kuala Lumpur
The growing demand for fish and the heavy expense involved in developing deep-sea fishing have generated increasing interest in aquaculture in Malaysia.The Malaysian government expects demand for fish for human consumption to increase from 1.2 million tonnes per year now to 1.9 by 2010, as the population expands from 22 million to almost 29 million. Much of the increase is expected to come from aquaculture. The government's target for aquaculture is 600,000 tonnes per year, which entails a 460% increase from 133,000 tonnes at present.

Currently, farming is focused on cockles, shrimp, tilapia, carp, and catfish. Efforts are being made to farm snapper, grouper, and seabass in offshore cages and to attract big business to the sector. There are also plans to expand seaweed culture.

The Malaysian agriculture ministry has teamed up with the private-sector companies, public-listed Consolidated Plantation, Aquacon, and Langkawi Marine Farm, in a project to farm snapper and grouper in cages off the island of Langkawi in the Straits of Malacca.

The farms use adapted Norwegian technology and the companies provide the cash and manpower, while the ministry supplies fingerlings and the expertise.

Public-listed Golden Hope Plantations has embarked on a project to farm grouper in cages off the island of Penang further south, also using Norwegian technology. Shipping company Halim Maznim is farming seabass and grouper in cages located about a kilometer offshore in the Straits of Malacca.

In the states of Malacca and Johor in southern peninsular Malaysia, fishermen will take part in an offshore fish breeding project costing US$13 million. The Malacca government and a private-sector company, Muara Aquaculture Park, are funding the project. The project involves breeding of fish and bivalves. Some 50,000 square metres off Nangka Island has been earmarked for offshore cage culture.

Under the first phase, a fish hatchery will be built to produce some 24 million fish per year of local species such as kerapu, siakap, and jenahak. Under the second phase, 16 fish cages will be placed off the island, and each cage is expected to produce up to 2,000 tonnes of marine fish.

The East Malaysian state of Sabah is setting up seaweed nurseries on Balambangan Island off the northern coast to expand seaweed farming in the state. Large-scale nurseries will also be set up on Omadai Island, off Semporna in the south where local entrepreneurs have developed 200 hectares of seaweed farms.

Local fishermen are increasingly turning to growing the algae as an alternative source of income, particularly as it does not require heavy investment.

Sabah hopes to export seaweed to the Philippines, which has a thriving seaweed processing industry, and to Singapore.

Researchers have developed a stratified fish rearing technique that they say has a capacity about ten times that of conventional ponds. With the technique, nearly a million fish could be cultured in a 0.5-hectare pond by stratifying the habitat of different fish, compared with about 100,000 using conventional methods, say the researchers at Technology Park Malaysia.

"Different fish have different feeding habits. For example, tilapia prefer to eat near the surface while patin and catfish like to feed at the middle and bottom levels," TPM director Professor Ishak Ismail says.

The technique is a novel solution to the problem of land shortage faced by the aquaculture sector in peninsular Malaysia.

Rainbow Trout Culture in the Peruvian Highlands

by Konrad Dabrowski

Although rainbow trout culture has been practiced in the Peruvian. Highlands for over 70 years, recent interest in expanding this activity has been sparked by the success of fish culturists in other Central and South American countries. The initiative is also coming from researchers in the Department of Nutrition at the National University of Agriculture La Molina in Lima,

The "El Ingenio" trout farm of Junin Province Directorate of Fisheries with expanded facilities for visitors and educational purposes.

Peru. Dr. Carlos Gomez, chair of this department, organized two workshops in March on nutrition of rainbow trout for industry representatives, state fisheries biologists, and private farmers from local cooperatives. Konrad Dabrowski, PD/A CRSP researcher on the Peru Project from Ohio State University, spoke at the workshops on nutrient requirements, diet formulation, and general aspects of trout culture. Dabrowski also visited two of what may be the highest elevation trout farms in the world. The farm at Patchakayo, at 11,216 feet above sea level, is operated by a local cooperative and annually produces 100 tons of trout for export and local markets. The facility in Huancayo Province, operated by the Regional Directorate of Fisheries, provides stocking material for local farmers and serves as a public education center. These Andean trout facilities offer unique opportunities for experimental and applied research on the effect of high altitudes on fish performance. Abundant, high quality water available in the highlands and an unlimited supply of fish meal from the Peruvian sea fishery make this region favorable for aquaculture development.