Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Fisheries, Aquaculture and Living Resources
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1473319
This article is part of the Research Topic Towards an Expansion of Sustainable Global Marine Aquaculture View all 13 articles

From Ocean to Cage: Evaluating the culture feasibility of Black-Spotted Croaker (Protonibea diacanthus)

Provisionally accepted
Shubhadeep Ghosh Shubhadeep Ghosh 1Gyanaranjan Dash Gyanaranjan Dash 2*Biswajit Dash Biswajit Dash 2Rajesh Kumar Pradhan Rajesh Kumar Pradhan 2Sekar Megarajan Sekar Megarajan 2Pralaya Ranjan Behera Pralaya Ranjan Behera 2Ritesh Ranjan Ritesh Ranjan 2Swatipriyanka Sen Swatipriyanka Sen 2Madhumita Das Madhumita Das 2Suresh Vettath Raghavan Suresh Vettath Raghavan 2Gopalakrishnan Achamveetil Gopalakrishnan Achamveetil 2Joykrushna Jena Joykrushna Jena 1
  • 1 Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, Delhi, India
  • 2 Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR), Kochi, India

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study evaluates the culture potential of the high-value marine fish, Protonibea diacanthus, in a polyculture system with Indian pompano (Trachinotus mookalee) using a marine cage culture setup. Wild-collected P. diacanthus were reared in two experimental groups within six high-density polyethylene sea cages (Inner Diameter: 6 m; Outer Diameter: 7 m; Depth: 4.5 m; Area: 28.29 m²; Volume: 127.29 m³). In Group-1, ninety individuals with an average body weight of 130.15 ± 6.39 g were stocked, while Group-2 consisted of ninety individuals with an average body weight of 287.80 ± 16.90 g. Each experimental group was divided into three cages, with 30 fish per cage, and reared in triplicate with T. mookalee stocked at 2500 fish per cage with average body weight of 31.12 ± 1.17 g for a duration of 148 days. The fish were fed a commercial diet containing 40% crude protein and 10% crude lipid. Growth performance indices, including total length gain, body weight gain, and specific growth rate, were significantly higher (P ≤ 0.05) in Group-1. However, feed efficiency indicators such as feed conversion ratio, feed efficiency ratio, and protein efficiency ratio did not differ significantly between the groups (P > 0.05). Growth modeling using the von Bertalanffy Growth Function (VBGF) estimated asymptotic length (L ∞ ) and weight (W ∞ ) at 164.21 ± 3.58 cm and 44,070.19 ± 2811 g, respectively, with a growth coefficient (k) of 0.30 ± 0.01 yr⁻¹ and t₀ of -0.005 ± 0.02 yr.The growth performance index (ϕ'), calculated as 1.91, was higher than previously reported values for wild populations, indicating superior growth under cage culture conditions. The presence of P. diacanthus in polyculture did not significantly affect the growth or feed utilization of T. mookalee (P > 0.05). These findings suggest that P. diacanthus is a viable candidate species with significant potential for integration into polyculture systems.

    Keywords: Captive rearing, growth modeling, feed utilization, Cage farming, sustainable aquaculture

    Received: 30 Jul 2024; Accepted: 06 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ghosh, Dash, Dash, Pradhan, Megarajan, Behera, Ranjan, Sen, Das, Raghavan, Achamveetil and Jena. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Gyanaranjan Dash, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR), Kochi, India

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.