aquaculture

The guide disappeared offline for a while and I was worried that the online draft guide to learning and teaching ichthyology was lost and gone forever. But it’s back.

This online course is free, and uses the FishBase.org data sets. There’s probably not a more comprehensive ichthyology course available online, and being available for free makes it a real treasure. It’s self-paced – you work through, use the FishBase data for reference, makes some notes and reflect, and all for free – a generous gift by the authors.

The guide provides a structure and case study material for a computer-based course in ichthyology for upper undergraduate and graduates students in biology or environmental science.

The key resource made accessible through this guide is FishBase, a large database on the biology of fish, available on CD-ROM (for the Windows operating system) and on the Internet (www.fishbase.org/search.cfm).

A free version on Huxley’s classic book The Crayfish is maintained on online by Rich Palmer, at the University of Alberta.

The book is subtitled: ‘An introduction to the study of zoology’. I particularly enjoy the ‘kinder, gentler’ writing style and it feels (or perhaps more accurately – reads) as though Huxley is very attuned to a more holistic approach to describing the crayfish.

The online version is supported by the original elegant woodblock illustrations and, as well, Rich has created a glossary (which was not part of the orginial edition).

In May, 1993, Eileen M. McVey produced a revised edition of Aquaculture for Youth and Youth Educators, National Agricultural Library Aquaculture Information Center. The document – a curriculum and teacher resource – is hosted by cyfernet.org.

This revision of the original Aqua-Topic, titled _Aquaculture for Youth and Youth Educators_, was created in response to continued demand from teachers, youth leaders, and students who are interested in receiving information and ideas on aquaculture for projects and study. The information which follows is for students at upper elementary through high school learning levels. Recommended activities at the end of the text are organized by level of difficulty; Level I being the least difficult and Level III being the most difficult. The activities can be modified depending on geographic area and availability of resources. A glossary is also included at the end of the text for those students who need assistance with vocabulary. Words that are marked by asterisks in the text can be found in the glossary. Bibliographies are also included at the end for both students and teachers.

The Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has produced a brief overview of aquaculture and a checklist of questions to ask yourself before getting starting in an aquaculture venture.

The focus is on starting an aquaculture enterprise in an Australian-type of context – i.e. where an investment of millions of dollars is required, rather than a backyard type of operation where the goal is to raise fish for yourself, or perhaps a small local market. The information is still valuable, with the checklist covering site, species etc being relevant to fish farming everywhere.

Setting up in aquaculture can be an expensive exercise and is not for the faint-hearted. First you need to acknowledge that this represents a significant business decision and requires a serious commitment.

Just like any other business venture, aquaculture requires a detailed feasibility study before investment decisions are made. Anything less than that puts you in the category of hobby farming, which is an excellent lifestyle choice but may not earn income.

The perception of aquaculture as an appealing lifestyle choice is a commonly held belief in Australia, possibly fuelled by our by our preference for coastal living. This has led on occasions to emotional rather than hard economic reasons driving what can be a ‘make or break’ financial decision. In retrospect, it appears that there are a number of conceptual hurdles at which the prospective aquaculturist may stumble. They are:

• a too ready acceptance of new or untried technology
• ignorance of the fact that aquaculture is a farming/business enterprise
• under capitalisation
• lack of market intelligence
• failure to understand that the product is a living organism with special requirements, because of its specific water quality requirements.

In 1998-1999 the Nefisco Foundation implemented the Homestead Magur (catfish) Culture Programme, also known as the Chari in the Bari programme in the Compartmentalization Pilot Project in Bangladesh. With this programme they tried to reach the poorest of the poor, and wanted to show this group that it is possible to grow high-value fish with limited resources.

The main idea behind the programme was that while magur (African catfish, Clarias gariepinus) is a good fish to be grown, because of its high growth rate, disease resistance, ability to take up oxygen from the air, etc., most local people were not aware of the potential of this fish. A few households in the CPP area had already been growing magur on their homesteads. This method proved to be successful, so CPP has taken up the task to spread this local knowledge among other households with emphasis on professional fishermen, landless, and other poor people. Initially 200 households joined the Chari in the Bari programme.

According to tve.org the African catfish Clarias gariepinus is one of the most suitable species for aquaculture in Africa. Since the 1970s it has been considered to hold great promise for fish farming in Africa. The African catfish has a high growth rate, is very resistant to handling and stress, and is very well appreciated in a wide number of African countries, including Nigeria (where it is often referred to as lungfish).

The FAO have produced a free document Artificial Reproduction and Pond Rearing of the African Catfish Clarias Gariepinus in Sub-Saharan Africa – A Handbook, edited by Gertjan de Graaf and Hans Janssen, from the Nefisco Foundation mentioned above.

Research has also been conducted in Brazil – Dietary canitine maintains energy reserves and delays fatigue of exercised african catfish (Clarias gariepinus) fed high fat diets effectively exploring better diets – which should lead to better growth patterns.

Rhodes University offer a free, online Clarias husbandry manual. They observe:

The African sharptooth catfish, Clarias gariepinus, is undoubtedly a remarkable and fascinating beast. Biologically it has all the attributes of a premier aquaculture species. Its biology, ecology and life history is well known and documented. From a teaching point of view this makes it an ideal species, allowing students to obtain an insight into how natural history information can be used for the development of culture technologies. Despite the technological know-how, total production of clariid catfish in Africa in 1993 has been estimated at a mere ca. 4500 tons. Despite the fact that there may be a considerable margin of error in the reported production figures, the farming of catfish in Africa is still a marginal activity. The reasons for this are manifold and can be primarily pinned on market forces, inadequate regional infrastructures, production costs, the socio-economics of fish farming and the underlying philosophy upon which aquaculture development in Africa is still largely based. Nevertheless the future potential for the farming of Clarias gariepinus throughout its distributional range is immense.