C4-Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, June 24, 2000
Raising Double The Yellow Perch Soon Possible For Fish Farmers
COLUMBUS, Ohio Aqua
culture farms soon will be able to
cheaply and successfully raise
two crops of high-value yellow
perch per year, said Konrad Da
browski, aquaculture specialist
at Ohio State University’s
School of Natural Resources.
With a little more study, a
process of controlled reproduc
tion and growth of yellow perch
could be available commercially
by next spring, Dabrowski said.
The process would enable fish
farmers to get two spawning
cycles per year instead of the
traditional one from adult
yellow perch and feed the result
ing young fish for as much as 98
percent less than the best per
forming commercially available
feed, without a loss in growth
performance.
Yellow perch, native to Ohio
and the Great Lakes, is in such
high demand that consumers
pay up to $l5 a pound for the
tasty fish. The demand stems
from tradition, the yellow
perch’s low fat content and
other physiological traits that
help yellow perch products have
a long shelf life, resist freezer
damage, and minimize problems
with off-flavor and cooking.
Each year, wild harvests from
the Great Lakes yield 11 mil
lion-18 million pounds of yellow
perch. Aquaculture farms con
tribute another 200,000 pounds
per year. But large food distribu
tors suggest the existing market
could absorb 50 million to 100
million pounds of yellow perch
each year, according to data
from the North Central Re
gional Aquaculture Center,
USDA, which co-sponsored the
recent study.
With fisheries in the U.S. and
Canada declining and demand
already higher than supply,
there is a great need for in
creased aquaculture production
of yellow perch.
For 10 years, Dabrowski and
other Ohio State University re
searchers have studied yellow
perch and how to effectively
reproduce and raise them in an
artificial environment.
In 1996, they were able to
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alter the yellow perch’s spawn
ing cycles with water tempera
ture and light manipulations, so
the perch spawn again in
August and September sev
eral months after when they nat
urally spawn in April and May.
Using this system, fish farmers
could feasibly raise two, or pos
sibly even three, yellow perch
crops a year.
But while two crops could be
reproduced, they could not be
successfully or economically
raised in captivity using artifi
cial diets or live food, such as
brine shrimp, until this spring,
Dabrowski said.
The main problem for one
sixth-inch to one-fourth-inch
long yellow perch after hatching
is inflation of the swim bladder
within the first week of their
feeding.
“The swim bladder gives the
fish their natural buoyancy, and
if it is not inflated during this
early window of opportunity it
never will inflate,” Dabrowski
said. “With no air bubble in
their swim bladder, young perch
have to expend energy swim
ming, or they will sink. This un
natural swimming is stressful to
their body, hurts growth, and
eventually the larvae die.”
The key is creating an artifi
cial environment in an aquacul
ture tank that mimics the fish’s
natural environment. The tank’s
temperature, lighting, water
clarity, and other conditions
should be as close as possible to
the perch’s natural setting. If it
is not, the young fish’s instinct
to swim to the surface and take
in an air bubble may not be
triggered, Dabrowski said.
The second major problem
with raising yellow perch on an
aquaculture farm has been the
expense of feeding them.
To raise yellow perch success
fully in controlled, tank-culture
conditions, fish farmers have
had to provide a live diet of ex
pensive brine shrimp, which cost
about $llO per pound to buy
and rear. The best commercially
available artificial feed costs
about $4O a pound.
In contrast, dry diets fed to
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trout and other types of fish cost
less than 75 cents per pound.
But, yellow perch are not natu
rally attracted to those varieties
of dry feed, Dabrowski said.
Studies this spring at Ohio
State University showed that
coating the dry trout diets with
liquid protein, called hydro
lysate, from krill a small,
shrimp-like crustacean
makes the diet more attractive
to yellow perch. It smells and
tastes better to them, and the
perch eat two to three times the
amount of the dry diet than they
normally would, Dabrowski
said.
Naturally, the fish grew more
and had a higher survival rate
because they ate more. They also
can be weaned off live food and
onto an artificial diet at three to
four weeks of age about a
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month or two earlier than
normal, he said.
This result was particularly
important because it allowed the
replacement of costly live food
and opened numerous research
possibilities to further identify
substances present in hydro
lyzed krill that have attractant
properties, he said. The dry diet
sprayed-with krill hydrolysate
costs only about 80 cents a
pound.
“In spring 2000, yellow perch
larvae were raised on Ohio State
University’s Columbus campus,
and in some batches more than
70 percent successfully filled
their swim bladders and showed
excellent growth,” Dabrowski
said.
“Several thousand of the ju
venile fish were then transferred
to an artificial diet and contin-
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ued to grow. This basically
means that two technologies,
controlled reproduction, and
larval rearing can now be tested
on a larger scale for commercial
success.”
With an effective and eco
nomical diet established, the
next step will be to try to enrich
it with vitamins and nutrients
that could reduce disease and
further improve yellow perch
production, he said.
The recent successful experi
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cause of collaborative work with
Manuel Yufera from the Marine
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Spain, Dabrowski said.
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