2009/753 Zooplankton research tour and fish hatchery/farm visits

By Bennan Chen

The SARDI Aquaculture Science Program Area is seeking optimal copepod production techniques for the ongoing Australian Seafood CRC Yellowtail Kingfish (YTK) and Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT) larval rearing projects. This research travel grant allowed the author, Dr Bennan Chen to attend the "AquaSeed 2009" international conference, held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. As one of the key speakers, Dr Chen gave an oral presentation entitled "Prospects of kingfish and tuna larviculture in South Australia". After the conference, Dr Chen also visited the Yellowfin Tuna and Cobia propagation research groups located in Tungkang Biotechnology Research Centre, Fisheries Research Institute.

Dr Chen also undertook a research tour in Taiwan to investigate the copepod pond production system used for marine larval finfish rearing. This involved capturing information about the system and getting some hands-on experience. The system could possibly be adopted, with modification, by Australian finfish hatcheries, including Clean Seas Tuna Ltd, which is focused on the hatchery production and grow-out of YTK and SBT. To conclude the trip, Dr Chen visited the Department of Aquaculture, National Taiwan Ocean University in Keelung, to initiate networking and to seek further collaboration between Taiwan and Australia under the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) International Science Linkages Programme.

This visit provided the opportunity to review international technologies and gain practical knowledge and hands-on experience on seawater zooplankton culture to produce good-quality live food for YTK and SBT larvae. This information will help to establish proper feeding regimes for future season's SBT and YTK larval rearing research at SARDI, and potentially influence procedures used at Clean Seas Tuna (CST) for commercial SBT larval production.