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ABOUT...
ACROSS CANADA
AND...
RESOURCES
FACT SHEET - ATLANTIC COD CULTURE RESEARCH AT ST. ANDREWS BIOLOGICAL STATION
The development of alternate species may be the key to the future success of the aquaculture industry in Atlantic Canada. For the past 15 years, finfish culture research at Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) St. Andrews Biological Station has focused on halibut and haddock. There were many successes in this research, including the production of the first domesticated halibut in North America and technology transfer to industry that began experimenting with cage culture of these species. In 2005, the Marine Fish Culture Team began to conduct research on Atlantic cod culture.
Atlantic Cod Production
Atlantic cod eggs are collected from 25 broodstock in communal spawning tanks, disinfected, and stocked into one of twelve 250-litre egg incubation tanks supplied with clean seawater. The eggs remain in these incubation tanks for approximately 2 ½ weeks. Once hatched, the larval fish are moved into one of 12, 3000-5000 litre start feeding tanks where they are fed cultured, live prey organisms until they are large enough to wean onto commercial diets. Fish can be reared in these tanks until they are 5-10 grams in weight and are ready for various research projects or sea cages.
Live feed produced for Atlantic cod includes algae, rotifers and artemia. Four species of algae have been selected because of their high fatty acid composition. Rotifers are the live feed for the very early larval marine finfish stages. The brine shrimp Artemia is used as the second live feed after rotifers.
Supporting Research Programs
Currently, the team is focused on producing Atlantic cod to supply juvenile fish to the various research programs at the Biological Station.
In 2005, fish were supplied to the Station’s Finfish Physiology Project for collaborative studies with the University of New Brunswick-Saint John. This multi-year study is looking at cod metabolism and, more specifically, how cod produce and use energy over their early life cycle. Future research will look at how this changes in various environments.
Nodaviruses, which are naturally occurring infectious viral diseases, cause high rates of mortality in hatchery-reared larvae and juveniles and have seriously limited the culture of marine fishes over the last decade. In the Atlantic Provinces, disease caused by a nodavirus was first reported in juvenile Atlantic cod being reared in Nova Scotia in 1999 and has since been found in all Atlantic provinces. The team will be providing fish for disease research in collaboration with the DFO Fish Health Unit at the Gulf Fisheries Centre to study the carrier status of cod juveniles using nodavirus. The aim of this study is to determine: whether a carrier state (when a fish contracts the virus and does not show signs of illness but is still capable of spreading the disease) is established following exposure to the virus; the length of time the carrier state can be detected following exposure to the virus; and whether the virus in known carrier fish can be transmitted to non-infected co-habitants.
A multi-million dollar collaborative study is underway with Genome Atlantic and other partners, called the Cod Genomics Project (CGP). This multi-partner project is exploring the potential of selective breeding for genetic improvement of cod. Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing sectors of the agricultural economy, with marine finfish species becoming increasingly important in the growth of the global industry. Despite this growth, aquaculture often relies on wild populations for broodstock, which is the situation with Atlantic cod in Canada. This project will develop a program to identify and select elite broodstock through the application of selective breeding. Resulting data will be used to estimate heritability for various traits, including length, weight, condition, appearance, maturity, organ weight and fillet yield. The Station is currently providing the facilities and infrastructure for the broodstock and their 50 family offspring to determine best growth, disease resistance and so on. For more information on this project, please visit the CGP website at www.codgene.ca.
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