The technique of aquaculture is considered as one of the most advanced techniques that is rapidly evolving and contributing effectively in enhancing food security through the support of fish stocks and preservation of the economically important marine species that are threatened by overfishing. Farmed fish also occupies more than one third of world production of fish, according to the statistics of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, that includes fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants and other aquatic organisms.
Since aquaculture is extremely important, the Ministry of Environment and Water conducted studies and experiments on the production of economically important marine fish on a State level, such as Hamoure, Shea’ri, Subaiti, Safi, Sha’m, Beyah, Gabet, and Yanum. It is considered as one of the Ministry’s initiatives that aim for strengthening the food security in the country by supporting the fish stock. This method is considered one of the most worldwide methods used for the development of living aquatic resources and supporting fish stocks. Furthermore, several countries had followed this method to restore the level of endangered species to normal. Annual coordination with a number of concerned local and federal agencies at the State level such as municipalities, environment authorities, and fishermen associations of fishermen is taking place to participate in the launch of young fish program.
The Marine Environment Research Center has supported fish stocks from 1984 to 2012 through the cultivation and production of a number of economically-important local fish and released them along the coast of the State, conservations, mangrove areas and creeks where around 2,527,701 of young fish were released, including Hamoure, Shea’ri, Subaiti, Safi, Sha’m, Beyah, Gabet, and Yanum. During this year, the Ministry aims to launch 200 thousand fish fingerlings reproduced at the Center such as Hamoure, Subaiti, and Sha’m to be launched in marine reserves, creeks, and mangroves.
Fish farming systems can be categorized as follows:
- Non-intensive farming system: putting few fish or aquatic organisms in relatively large areas, and providing natural food in the cultivation system, that is, production inputs are few, but it has low productivity compared to the space used.
- Semi-intensive aquaculture system: putting the average number of fish in a relatively large areas with the use of manufactured food along with natural food in the process of cultivation with intensive care and control of this farming system environment since it results in large production.
- Intensive aquaculture system: it relies on the development of large numbers of fish in small aquatic areas where the average production is larger compared to former systems. It depends entirely on introducing manufactured food with high nutritional value and requires great experience with higher degree of control and the production is very high.
Fish farming depends on many foundations and principles. First of all, the appropriate location must be selected and then the quality of the target fish for breeding must be determined. Second, the quantity of expected production must be identified compared to the available space for farming as well as the quality of the cages used for breeding such as net cages, concrete ponds, or other cage types used in aquaculture. Third, attention to the density of fish in each cage or basin to the amount of food must be calculated correctly to reduce the waste of food that may arise from the wrong estimate of the fish quantities.
The phase of fish mothers composition and processing is the most important stage of the farming process. Since the mothers are brought in from the sea and been placed in in quarantine for a period of not less than two weeks before the introduction into the maternal care basins. In case of importing mothers from other countries, a health certificate must be available to indicate their health and that they are free from any disease; these also are quarantined for 3 weeks before the introduction into maternal care basins.
The mothers fish receive special care from the early stages of fish farming for a period of a month and a half to two months before entering the mating season, where they are distributed in the basins of care at different rates ranging between 1:1 or 1:2 or ratio vary according to type for males per female. Then, the mothers begin to receive intensive and high quality foods according to the type of fish to be farmed, such as feeding them shrimps, squid, and sardine in addition to plant fodder with high protein and so that those mothers can produce high quality and vitality eggs.
When the mating season starts, the mothers show some general manifestations such as the swelling of the abdominal area along with some behaviors, like the approach of males to females to start the mating process and sometimes males struggle to include the weaker males out from the mating process, as in the case of Hamoure. Produced eggs are collected using special nets with mesh openings that are less than the size of fish eggs that range in size from 700-900 microns. These nets are placed at the basin’s upper exit, because most of the fish eggs have floating characteristics. Then, the eggs are transferred to separate the fertilized eggs from the non-fertilized. Afterwards, the fertilized eggs are gathered to calculate their number and transferred to the hatching tanks. The hatching process takes about 24 hours or more where after this phase the hatchability percentage is calculated. The newly hatched larvae are transferred to the larval care ponds taking into account the variation in temperatures which must be no more than 1 degree Celsius in difference.
The fish larvae depends on the yolk sac as food since day one of hatching until the third day, to start then the search for food that is appropriate for their size and needs. In the primary stages of feeding fish larvae in fish farming systems, a simple type of zooplankton called Rotifers is used, from the third day of hatching, until the 18-20 days later. Rotifers are nutritionally enhanced through feeding on types of algae and nutritional boosters in order to raise their nutritional value before being fed to the larvae, and the number of rotifers in the basins of the larval care are calculated on a daily basis to evaluate the larvae consumption of rotifers. Another zooplankton type for feeding the larvae is introduced on the 17-18 day of hatching, called Artemia. Larvae consume artemia until the 25-30 day of hatching, then fish fingerlings start to feed on manufacture-processed foods with different sizes to suit the size of fish fingerlings mouth opening until the stages of nutrition is developed that fish can rely on cuts and large size feed.
Most fishermen in the UAE are fattening fish by the use of floating cages, especially for Hamoure, Subaiti, and Sha’m, where they are fed with sardines and low-economic fish. Fishermen also sell their fish in other in markets or in case of lack of demand when the sea is unstable to increase their income and the availability of fish types in the market. The Ministry in collaboration with fishermen's associations such as the Association of Fujairah and Kalba Fishermen, by providing fishermen with fish fingerlings and familiarize them with methods of how to use the cages in the sea and the type of nutrition in order to spread fish education technology in the community of fishermen in the country, which will reduce overfishing. The Ministry also trained a number of fishermen and some of the workers in the marine environment and aquaculture concerned sectors.