Read the
magazine
story to find out more. |
ARS researchers are
working out ways to raise saltwater fish like this pompano hundreds of miles
from the nearest ocean. Click the image for more information about
it. |
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Futuristic Seafood: Raising Delicious Cobia and
PompanoInland!
By
Marcia Wood February 9, 2009
Two saltwater superstarscobia and Florida pompanoare
regarded by connoisseurs as being some of the world's best seafood. Both cobia
(pronounced COE-bee-uh) and pompano (POM-puh-no) have firm, mostly white flesh
that's perfect for grilling, pan-frying or baking.
Now, Agricultural Research
Service (ARS) agricultural engineer
Timothy
J. Pfeiffer, fish nutritionist
Martin
A. Riche, and fish biologist
Charles
R. Weirichall based in Ft. Pierce, Fla.are determining how to
best raise cobia and pompano inland, hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean
or bay, in huge tanks of fresh or only slightly salty water. The tanks are part
of what's known as a "recirculating aquaculture system," or "RAS," in which
water is cleaned and used again and again.
These systems offer the potential to reduce discharge of everyday
fish-farm effluent to as little as 3 percentor lessof the total
amount of water used each day. Fish wastes and unused food collected in the
system could be recycled as nutrient-rich compost.
But much more remains to be discovered about the needs of the
saltwater fish that would be reared in the tanks. And many engineering details
must be worked out. In an experiment with 2,400 juvenile pompano, the
scientists showed that it's indeed possible to raise this oceanic
speciesfrom juvenile to market sizein water that's only slightly
salty.
In this case, the water had a salinity of only 5 parts per thousand,
as compared to the 35 parts per thousand in most oceans. Now the scientists
want to make the system practical, profitable, and energy efficient for all
stages of inland, low-salinity production of cobia and pompano.
Pfeiffer, Riche and Weirich work for the Arkansas-based ARS
Harry
K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center, and are stationed
at Florida Atlantic University's
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in
Ft. Pierce.
Read
more about their research in the February 2009 issue of Agricultural
Research magazine.
ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.