18 November 2012

What Is Fish Farming

Did you know how and what is fish farming? Fish farming is the main principle of aquaculture. Fish farming is defined as an activity for maintaining, raising, and / or breeding fish, and harvest the results in a controlled environment. Fish farming involves an activity of commercial fish farming is generally done in a pool, or the like, which are generally in the form of fish consumption. A facility that serves to produce fish seed (juvenile), either for the enlargement of the fish, for fishing pond, or aim to increase the number of populations of native fish species in nature, commonly referred to as a fish hatchery. The most common species used in fish farming is a type of carp, tilapia, catfish, carp, catfish, (for Europe and America: salmon, seabass and cod).

With the increased demand for fish and fish protein, resulting in overfishing in nature. With the fish farming provides a solution to the fishery would any other source in the procurement of fish, other than arrest. However, since the beginning of the fish farming, especially carnivorous types, such as types of salmon fish farming or even groups of crustaceans, does not necessarily have an impact on reducing the activity of catching fish in the wild, because the fish farming feed material usually takes the form of fish meal and fish oil derived from fish caught in the wild. In other words, one that farmed fish will consume more fish (weight) of the catch rather than the weight of the fish itself during maintenance. Income from fish farming activities that can be recorded by the FAO in 2008 reached 33.8 million tons with a value of approximately U.S. $ 60 billion.



Fish Farming System

Based on the technology used, there are two types of fish farming systems, the extensive fish farming based on local photosynthetic productivity and intensive fish farming, where fish are farmed given feed from the outside.

1) Extensive Fish Farming

The limiting factor for the growth of fish in fish farming extensively here is the issue of availability of supply of natural feed, which is generally in the form of pelagic zooplankton that eat algae or benthic animals such as microscopic shrimp and mollusks. Tilapia species can take a filter (filter feeding) directly phytoplankton, which enables higher productivity. Photosynthetic production can be increased by fertilizing the pond water using a mixture of artificial fertilizers, such as potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen and micro-elements. Because most fish are carnivorous, they occupy a higher place in the food chain and therefore only a small fraction of primary photosynthetic production (typically 1%) will be converted into fish that can be harvested.

The second concern is the risk of extensive fish farming algae blooming. As the temperature, nutrient availability and sunlight allows for optimal algae growth becomes, the algae will double its biomass at an exponential rate, which in turn leads to a saturation of nutrients and plankton mass death ensued.

Decaying algal biomass will deplete the oxygen content in the water pool because blocking sunlight and pollute the waters with organic and inorganic compounds (such as ammonium ions), which can (and often) cause mass mortality of fish.

In order to utilize all available food sources in the pond, fish farmers will choose fish species which occupy different places in the pond ecosystem, for example, the type of filter algae feeder such as tilapia, eating benthic such as goldfish or catfish and a zooplankton-eating (kind of carp ) or weed-eating fish such as grass carp water.

2) Intensive Fish Farming

In intensive fish farming systems, fish production per unit area of ​​the land can be improved as expected, for the availability of oxygen, water and food quality can be fulfilled. Because of the intensive fish farming water quality requirements must be fulfilled, we need a water treatment system that integrates intensive, in fish culture systems. One way that was quite innovative for the application of this condition is a combination of hydroponic fish farming and water treatment.

In intensive fish farming, input cost per unit weight of the fish will be higher than the extensive fish farming, mainly due to the high cost of fish feed, which requires a feed with a higher protein content (up to 60%) with a balanced amino acid composition, compared to the feed livestock. However, a higher protein requirement is a consequence of the expectation of feed conversion efficiency (FCR) were also steeper. Example: The salmon have FCR of about 1.1, while the chicken is 2.5. Farmed fish that do not always live in the warmer temperatures, and it will consume a lot of energy in the form of carbohydrates and fats in the diet. This is often offset by the lower land costs and the higher productions which can be obtained due to high high degree of control inputs. The conditions that will cost as mentioned above can be offset by using lower-priced land and spur the production of high-in height.

One thing that is important is aeration, because farmed fish requires sufficient oxygen level for growth. This is achieved by implementing the use of aerators (water mill), the technique of running water (rain water), or put oxygen directly into the water. Types of fish catfish (Clarias spp.) Able to breathe oxygen directly from the air and can tolerate much pollution level is higher than any trout or salmon, which makes aeration and water treatment less necessary and makes the catfish as a species of fish that is suitable for intensive fish farming. In some catfish fish farming, found about 10% of the volume of water in the form of biomass of fish pond.

The risk of infections by parasites like fish lice, fungi (Saprolegnia spp.), Worms (nematodes and trematodes), bacteria (Yersinia spp, Pseudomonas spp.), And protozoa (Dinoflagellates) is similar to those seen in animal breeding, particularly on density high population. But the farm is an fish farming business activities of larger and more technologically advanced that can solve the problem with better pathogen. Intensive fish farming should really be able to provide adequate water quality (oxygen, ammonia, nitrite, etc.) to minimize the level of stress that would cause problems pathogens more difficult to overcome. This means, intensive fish farming requires tight monitoring and a high level of expertise of the fish farmer who run it.

Recirculating fish farming systems with very high exposure levels, where there is control over all the production parameters, has been used for several fish species of high economic value. With recirculation fish farming systems, very little water is used per unit of production. However, this culture system capital costs and high operating costs. Higher cost structures mean that fish farming recirculation systems are economical only for high-value fish products, such as broodstock for seed production, seed products for the fish farming of floating net cages, fish species for research and some other fish of high economic value.

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