Essay On Aquaculture

Aquaculture Management – Scallop

Introduction: (Why should you go into aquaculture?)

Fishes (seafood) are known to produce protein for human consumption more efficiently than any other species, also stated by nutritionists, fish provides healthier forms of protein.

http://marinelife.about.com/od/invertebrates/tp/10-Facts-About-Scallops.htm

1st Stage: Collection of spat (scallop larvae)

There are two ways to obtain spat to start an aquaculture farm:

• Collection of wild spat - set up a series of mesh spat bag suspended in the water column on a line anchored to the seafloor in an area known to have high scallop productivity.

The concept of the collection is that the spats will pass through the mesh bag and attach to the material stuffed inside and grow until they are larger than the mesh material to be collected. Image of mesh bag ready for deploy: http://www.fukuina.com/articles/images/article3_pic2.jpg

For the collection, several factors should be considered, such as the type, material & sizes of mesh; where & when to set up the bag; when to collect back the bag.

 Type & Material: It is best to have mesh bag with high surface area with texture or structure that the larvae prefer to settle itself. For scallop spat, polyethene mesh bag is preferred and it should be stuffed with a specialty material known as Netron, although discarded nylon netting could also be used.

There are several advantages of using Netron over nylon such as that scallop spats set better & strip easier and faster (for collection); allows the bag to be suspended efficiently since Netron is made of polyethene (floats) while nylon sinks; the bags stay inflated to the maximum (Netron has better elastic memory).

 Size: The size of mesh depends on the wa...

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...eed/water quality, pollution etc.

For each water change, culture containers can be sterilized with bleach and water used should be filtered to 2µm and UV sterilized. Antibiotics (chloramphenicol, penicillin, sulphamethazine) could be added to cultures to minimize bacterial build-up between water changes. Addition of antibiotics to culture is not recommended for flow-through growth culture.

3rd Stage: Harvesting and Sales

Harvesting time is different based on species of scallops however scallops can be sold at any stage (to other farms) just to bring in more revenue for farms that just started out. During harvesting, efficient rapid delivery to cool storage is important – to keep the scallop fresh.

Images of culture equipment: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/29jknwwf27c7twe/xOz9H-4qSb#/

(David Hardy (2006). Scallop Farming. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. p138-154.)