SEAFDEC/AQD Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center | Aquaculture Department

AFFORDABLE and sustainable feed ingredients for fish farmers are in the works as researchers continue to develop fish diet formulations using discarded agricultural wastes and byproducts. Dr. Frolan Aya, a scientist at the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC/AQD), and his colleagues examined agricultural wastes and byproducts for potential inclusion in diets formulated for omnivorous fish such as Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in their study, “Potential use of agricultural wastes in aquafeed production.” Fruit peels, pulps or brans, seeds, bagasse (sugarcane residue), molasses, and okara (soybean curd residue) comprise 40 to 60 percent of wastes generated from major crop industries such as coconut, banana, pineapple, mango, citrus, and sugarcane. While these agri-wastes have found some use as organic …

How much disease-causing bacteria can tilapia tolerate?  A recently published study provides a glimpse, at least for Aeromonas, a type of waterborne bacteria.

The coral reefs north of Negros Island are once more teeming with seahorses after a seven-year partnership between researchers and the local island community successfully protected and replenished their wild population. At Molocaboc Island in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, divers assisted in scientific surveys of seahorse populations, technicians maintained seahorse breeding facilities, the local government’s Bantay Dagat (sea patrol) enforced protection, and schools gladly embraced information and educations campaigns. The island is within the Sagay Marine Reserve, a marine protected area chosen as the project site of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC/AQD) to protect and revive the dwindling population of the tiger tail seahorse (Hippocampus comes).   During assessments done from 2012 to 2013, local divers …

“Let us save our native catfish by conservation, management, breeding, and culture before it is too late. We must act immediately, and the future is now.”

By recycling excess nutrients that would otherwise have been released to the environment, a shrimp farm harvested almost 13 tons of shrimp worth P3.3 million (US$67,694) after just over 4 months of culture.