This project extends previous work, which has demonstrated the feasibility of snapper farming in both marine and inland saline waters. It seeks to reduce production costs by improving fingerling survival and growth and reducing input (feed) costs.
A reliable supply of cheap, high quality, healthy fingerlings is essential for development of viable snapper farming. Currently, industry estimates the cost of production of snapper at $1.00 per fingerling. To improve profitability, there is a need to reduce the cost and improve the vigour of fingerlings and to develop cost-effective high-performance diets and feeding systems for both hatchery and grow-out. This need has been recognised through the FRDC sponsored Hatchery Feeds R & D Plan (McKinnon et al., 2000: http://www.aims.gov.au/hatchery-feeds). This project will improve hatchery methods and replace live feeds, such as brine shrimp (Artemia) whose supply and quality are unreliable, with alternative live feeds or artificial feeds. The project will also develop better strategies for combining intensive and extensive rearing methods so as to optimise fingerling survival and quality. Research will have application for other species, including tuna.
Growout diets need to produce fish with desirable marketing traits, including colour. Fish are marketed as a “healthy” product, largely because fish fat has relatively high contents of the omega-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids. However, while replacing fish meal and fish oil in fish diets may reduce diet cost, it will also reduce these health benefits. Minimising feed wastage through ensuring optimal pellet stability and determining the best feeding frequencies and feeding rates are critical factors in reducing pollution from fish farms. To achieve these goals, diets will be developed that satisfy but not oversupply essential nutrients and that are made from high quality, highly digestible, readily obtainable ingredients. Diets will also be designed to stimulate maximum consumption and deliver optimal feed conversion efficiency. Additional research is needed to build on successful results with snapper diet development under the current FRDC ADD Subprogram snapper diet development project. The nutrition component of the current application and the exisiting FRDC snapper diet development project will be fully integrated.
Finally, the project will seek to reduce disease-induced mortality by developing treatment methods for common parasites and establishing a foundation for immunological approaches to fish skin diseases.
