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Fishes
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Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production
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Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production

A special issue of Fishes (ISSN 2410-3888). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Aquaculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 12067

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Lourdes Encina

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, University of Sevilla, 41009 Seville, Spain
Interests: fish communities; aquaculture; hydroacoustic; ecosystem management; aquatic ecosystem conservation; exotic fish species

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aquaculture production has now become one of the main suppliers of fish in the world market. More than half of all the fish currently consumed in the world comes from the aquaculture industry, and it is estimated that in the coming years, this amount will be even higher. Aquaculture companies require accurate data of the abundance and biomass of the fish farmed in their facilities. The more accurate these data are, the better the decision making for the fish farm will be in terms of all management aspects. There are different lines that are being developed, such as those related to the use of non-intrusive methodologies for monitoring the fish stock density or the size structure into the production units; others research focuses on investigating the effect of biological factors or environmental factors on production, such as those related to the appearance and spread of diseases, cannibalism, the effect of temperatures on growth, etc. The purpose of this Special Issue is to collect the latest research that contributes to increasing the accuracy of fish stock data acquisition for fish farm management. Submissions may take the form of original research articles related to these aspects.

Dr. Lourdes Encina
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fishes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • aquaculture
  • climate change
  • detection of fish losses
  • effects of temperature
  • environmental factors
  • fish farm management
  • measurement on the accuracy of fish stock methods
  • monitorization of fish size
  • non-intrusive methodologies
  • quantity and biomass estimations
  • stress measurement due to handling

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 5936 KiB  
Article
The Influence of Water Nitrate Concentration Combined with Elevated Temperature on Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss in an Experimental Aquaponic Setup
by Dimitrios K. Papadopoulos, Athanasios Lattos, Ioanna Chatzigeorgiou, Aphrodite Tsaballa, Georgios K. Ntinas and Ioannis A. Giantsis
Fishes 2024, 9(2), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes9020074 - 13 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1504
Abstract
Intensive recirculating systems are a fast-developing sector of aquaculture. While several warm-water fish have been reared in aquaponics, almost no data are available for cold-water species. The determination of nitrate toxicity thresholds in recirculating aquaculture is crucial. Different pollutants are typically more toxic [...] Read more.
Intensive recirculating systems are a fast-developing sector of aquaculture. While several warm-water fish have been reared in aquaponics, almost no data are available for cold-water species. The determination of nitrate toxicity thresholds in recirculating aquaculture is crucial. Different pollutants are typically more toxic at elevated temperatures. We investigated the performance of Oncorhynchus mykiss under two different nitrate levels and two temperatures. We applied a 2 × 2 factorial design, where fish (9.78 ± 0.51 g) were exposed to nitrate concentrations of 40 or 110 mg/L NO3− and to temperatures of 17 °C or 21 °C for 20 days. This study focused on understanding the physiological responses of rainbow trout to relatively low nitrate levels under heat stress in order to investigate the feasibility of integrating this species into commercial aquaponics. The growth, condition, and expression of genes involved in metabolism, heat shock, antioxidant, and immune response were assessed in the liver, together with the activities of enzymes related to glucose and fatty acid metabolism. High nitrate levels at 17 °C affected the condition but did not alter growth, leading to increased glycolytic potential and, occasionally, a greater reliance on lipid oxidation. Antioxidant defense was mainly induced due to high nitrates and the similar expression patterns of antioxidant genes observed under high nitrate at both 17 °C and 21 °C. Warm exposure decreased condition and growth, leading to greatly reduced glucokinase transcription, irrespective of the nitrate levels. Exposure to 21 °C and high nitrate led to equivalent growth and condition as well as to a milder inflammatory response combined with metabolic readjustments (enhancement of glycolytic and lipid oxidation pathways) compared to the low nitrates at 21 °C. Based on the results, rearing at a temperature close to 21 °C should be avoided for fingerling growth, while NO3− concentration until 110 mg/L may not have severe impacts on fingerling health and growth at 17 °C. In addition, rainbow trout fingerlings can tolerate a 20-day exposure at 21 °C and NO3− up to 110 mg/L. Additional factors should always be considered, such as specific water quality parameters, for a comprehensive approach to assessing the feasibility of rainbow trout aquaculture in aquaponics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production)
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15 pages, 4823 KiB  
Article
Automated Monitoring of Bluefin Tuna Growth in Cages Using a Cohort-Based Approach
by Pau Muñoz-Benavent, Gabriela Andreu-García, Joaquín Martínez-Peiró, Vicente Puig-Pons, Andrés Morillo-Faro, Patricia Ordóñez-Cebrián, Vicente Atienza-Vanacloig, Isabel Pérez-Arjona, Víctor Espinosa and Francisco Alemany
Fishes 2024, 9(2), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes9020046 - 24 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1292
Abstract
In this article, the evolution of BFT (bluefin tuna) sizes in fattening cages is studied, for which it was necessary to perform exhaustive monitoring with stereoscopic cameras and an exhaustive analysis of the data using automatic procedures. Exploring the size evolution of BFT [...] Read more.
In this article, the evolution of BFT (bluefin tuna) sizes in fattening cages is studied, for which it was necessary to perform exhaustive monitoring with stereoscopic cameras and an exhaustive analysis of the data using automatic procedures. Exploring the size evolution of BFT over a long period is an important step in inferring their growth patterns, which are essential for designing smart aquaculture and sustainable fishing, and even assessing their health status. An important objective of this work was to verify whether tuna in captivity, in addition to fattening, grow in length. To this end, our autonomous monitoring system, equipped with stereoscopic cameras, was installed from 28 July 2020 to 23 May 2021 in a fattening cage in the Mediterranean containing 724 free-swimming tuna. This system provides thousands of images that, grouped by time intervals, allow us to conduct our studies. An automatic procedure, already introduced in a previous work and capable of processing large volumes of data, is used to estimate the length and width of individuals in ventral stereoscopic images of fish, and the evolution over time is analysed for each biometric characteristic. However, verifying the evolution of length and width based only on means or medians of these measurements may be inconsistent and insufficiently accurate to support our study objectives, as individuals of different sizes and ages may grow at different rates. Therefore, a modal analysis (Bhattacharya’s method) was undertaken to identify the cohorts within the population. The results showed that each modal length surpassed the length of the next cohort and that there was accelerated growth in cages compared to the wild. In addition, we proved that using a length–width–weight relationship to estimate fish weight gives more accurate results than traditional length–weight relationships for fish fattened in cages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production)
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11 pages, 1090 KiB  
Article
Influences of Aquaponics System on Growth Performance, Antioxidant Parameters, Stress Parameters and Gene Expression of Carassius auratus
by Hanping Mao, Bin Wang, Jian Zhao, Yafei Wang, Xiaoxue Du and Qiang Shi
Fishes 2023, 8(7), 360; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8070360 - 11 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1713
Abstract
Aquaponics is a new type of composite farming system, which combines aquaculture and hydroponics through ecological design to achieve scientific synergism. However, the effects of aquaponics on the welfare status and stress parameters of fish are unclear. In this study, 150 crucian carp [...] Read more.
Aquaponics is a new type of composite farming system, which combines aquaculture and hydroponics through ecological design to achieve scientific synergism. However, the effects of aquaponics on the welfare status and stress parameters of fish are unclear. In this study, 150 crucian carp with an average initial body weight of 7.06 ± 0.32 g were selected. Nine fish were randomly selected as the control group (NC group and hypoxia group) for stress, antioxidant and gene expression parameters after acclimation and hypoxia stress, respectively. The remaining crucian carps were randomly divided into three experimental groups with 20 crucian carps in each group (T0, T1 and T2, respectively), with three replicates. The fresh weight of the lettuce root in the T2 group had no significant effect (p > 0.05). Compared with the control group (T0 and T1), there were significant differences in the specific growth rate, the weight gain rate, the fresh leaf weight, the chlorophyll content and the water quality parameters in group T2 (p < 0.05). Regarding the biochemical parameters, superoxide dismutase and catalase showed significant differences between the T2 and T1 groups (p < 0.05). At the same time, the HSP70 and Prdx3 genes were upregulated in the liver of the T2 group compared to the NC group and the hypoxia group. The research suggests that aquaponics may reduce the hypoxia stress of crucian carp without affecting the growth of crucian carp and lettuce. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production)
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10 pages, 6002 KiB  
Article
Seasonal Length–Weight Relationships of European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) in Two Aquaculture Production Systems
by Carlos Orduna, Ilaria de Meo, Amadora Rodríguez-Ruiz, Juan Ramón Cid-Quintero and Lourdes Encina
Fishes 2023, 8(5), 227; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8050227 - 25 Apr 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1509
Abstract
Different non-intrusive methods have been developed to estimate fish biomass, which is a determinant factor for aquaculture farming management. Length–weight conversion is a crucial parameter for accurate biomass estimation. However, the potential environmental and seasonal variations in fish length–weight relationships are rarely considered. [...] Read more.
Different non-intrusive methods have been developed to estimate fish biomass, which is a determinant factor for aquaculture farming management. Length–weight conversion is a crucial parameter for accurate biomass estimation. However, the potential environmental and seasonal variations in fish length–weight relationships are rarely considered. In this study, we examined seasonal variation in length–weight relationships for European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) from two farming systems subject to different salinity and temperature conditions: inland ponds and offshore cages. The results showed significant differences in intercept and slope between the two types of facilities studied, as well as between the same seasons for both facilities. This highlights the need to use specific length–weight equations to obtain accurate biomass estimation based on fish length data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production)
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16 pages, 2879 KiB  
Article
Morphometric Variations of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) (Linnaeus, 1758) Local Strains Collected from Different Fish Farms in South Western Highland Agro-Ecological Zone (SWHAEZ), Uganda: Screening Strains for Aquaculture
by Gerald Kwikiriza, Mourine J. Yegon, Nelson Byamugisha, Apulnal Beingana, Faith Atukwatse, Alex Barekye, Juliet K. Nattabi and Harald Meimberg
Fishes 2023, 8(4), 217; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8040217 - 20 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3750
Abstract
Despite the global contribution of aquaculture as an important pillar for food and nutritional security, its rapid growth has been hampered by inadequate and poor-quality seed due to inbreeding, hybridization of related stocks, and poor-quality broodstock. Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of Nile tilapia [...] Read more.
Despite the global contribution of aquaculture as an important pillar for food and nutritional security, its rapid growth has been hampered by inadequate and poor-quality seed due to inbreeding, hybridization of related stocks, and poor-quality broodstock. Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of Nile tilapia in natural water bodies of Uganda has been studied but research gaps remain on the morphometric characterization of farmed O. niloticus in Uganda, which hinders selective breeding initiatives. This study characterized O. niloticus from various farmers in Uganda’s Southwestern Highland Agro-Ecological Zone using their morphometric traits. In this study, 8 morphometric traits were taken on each of the 258 fish samples collected with at least 30 samples sampled from each pond system in the zone. The morphometric data generated were analyzed using multivariate analysis. In order to delineate the populations from the different ponds, Discriminant Function analysis (DFA) was performed on the dataset and distribution plots generated to test on the purity of the strains. There were significant differences in the morphometric traits among the populations with the Victoria fish population having the highest standard length while the Kyoga population had the highest weight. Morphometric characterization grouped the fish into three clusters, indicative that fish farms in the zone possibly had different sources of fish seed. The condition factor, which is a measure of wellbeing of the fish, showed that all the populations displayed an isometric growth which is indicative of the fish growing in length as it is in weight. The results of this study provide evidence that local O. niloticus from different farms display differences in body shape as a result of using fish seed from different sources. This aspect can be applied in selective breeding programs after establishing the genetic structure of the farmed Nile tilapia stock. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production)
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10 pages, 1282 KiB  
Article
Effect of Stocking Density and Feeding Strategy on Zootechnical Parameters and Profitability of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Reared in Floating Cages in Toho-Todougba Complex Lagoon in Benin Republic
by Romaric Aïzonou, Arsène Mathieu Houssou, Guillaume Koussovi, Comlan Eugène Dessouassi, Mardochée Ephraïm Achoh, Sessien Lionnel Hounhouedo, Clovis Idossou Hountchémè and Hyppolite Agadjihouèdé
Fishes 2023, 8(4), 192; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8040192 - 3 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1645
Abstract
This study aimed to compare the growth performance and economic profitability of rearing Oreochromis niloticus in floating cages using three feeding strategies (5 days a week, 6 days a week, and 7 days a week) coupled with three stocking densities (20, 40, and [...] Read more.
This study aimed to compare the growth performance and economic profitability of rearing Oreochromis niloticus in floating cages using three feeding strategies (5 days a week, 6 days a week, and 7 days a week) coupled with three stocking densities (20, 40, and 60 fish·m−3). Male monosex fish measuring 6.44 ± 0.18 cm and weighing 3.42 ± 0.7 g were used. The controls were weighed every 15 days from the 35th day of rearing until 185 days to assess zootechnical parameters. BioMar feed (Efico Cromis 832F) was used during the study, and the feed ration was adjusted for each treatment every 2 weeks. At the end of the study, the average weights varied from 293.09 g to 468.41 g for the conditions of 40 fish·m−3 with a 5/7-day diet and 20 fish·m−3 with a 7/7-day diet, respectively. The yield per m2 values were between 7.11 kg and 23.17 kg, respectively. On the other hand, the economic profitability was better with the condition of 40 fish.m−3 with daily feeding. These results suggest that in the Toho-Todougba lagoon complex, a stocking density between 40 and 60 fish·m−3 coupled with daily feeding (three times a day) promotes the optimization of fish production and profitability of fish farming. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development of Sustainable Aquaculture Production)
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