Aquacultural Engineering 2 (1983) 165-171

A Simple and Inexpensive Spawning and Egg Collection System for Fish with Pelagic Eggs Ingvar Huse and Per Anders Jensen
Austevoll Marine Aquaculture Station, N-5392 Storeb, Norway

A BS TRA CT A spawning and egg collecting system for fish with pelagic eggs is described and discussed. The spawning un# is a 175 m 3 submersible plastic pen supported by a polyethylene floating collar. The eggs are collected by rotating the water column in the pen and placing a net in the rotating water. The system is inexpensive and easy to operate. Temperature and illumination control are feasible. The quantity collected in the 1981 spawning season was 138 million eggs. Obtained eggs were o f good quality. The theoretical spawning potential o f the brood stock was 271 million eggs. This difference was mainly ascribed to suboptimal collection, but also to incomplete spawning and sinking o f unfertilized and dead eggs.

INTRODUCTION In fish, culture eggs are obtained either by stripping or by natural or induced spawning. With spontaneous spawners and fish with demersal eggs stripping is the most practical m e t h o d which explains why it is the dominating practice in fresh water fish culture. Most marine fishes have pelagic eggs, and many of them are multiple spawners. In marine fish culture b o t h egg procuring methods have therefore been applied (Shelbourne, 1964). For sea breams Sparus spp., Pagrus m a / o r (Ren6, 1974; Fujita, 1979; Fabre, 1979) and sea bass D i c e n t r a r c h u s labrax (Barnab6, 1974; Bedier, 1981) eggs are obtained by spawning while 165 Aquaeultural Engineering 0144-8609/83/$03.00 Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1983. Printed in Great Britain.

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with turbot Scophthalmus maximus and sole Solea solea both methods are practiced (Flfichter, 1974; Jones et al., 1981; Devauchelle and Cladas, 1982). The present paper deals with a spawning and egg collecting system used for cod Gadus morhua, a species which has undergone culture experiments for 100 years (Dannevig, 1910; Shelbourne, 1964). The cod egg is pelagic and has a diameter range of 1.16-1-89 mm (Russel, 1976). The individual cod spawns over a period of 3-4 weeks while the spawning season for a cod population normally lasts 2-3 months.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION The spawning and egg collecting system is shown in Figs 1 and 2. The main component is a 175 m 3 floating pen made of PVC-coated nylon fabric. The pen is supported by a floating collar made of high density polyethylene (PEH) tubes and moored to an anchored pontoon gangway with ropes. The conical roof is also made of PVC-coated nylon fabric which is supported by aluminium rods. Zippers in the roof give

Fig. 1. The spawning and egg collecting system, side view. 1. Egg collecting net. 2. Water inlet nozzle. 3. Bottom drainage. 4. Drainage hose. 5. Drainage barrel. 6. Pump. 7. Surface sieve.

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Fig. 2. The spawning and egg collecting system, top view. 1. Egg collecting net. 2. Water inlet nozzle. 3. Bottom drainage. 4. Drainage hose. 5. Drainage barrel. 6. Pump.

access to the pen. The water inlet nozzle is oriented horizontally along the pen wall halfway between the surface and the b o t t o m . Thus the inflowing water generates a rotation o f the whole water column of the pen. The eggs are collected .in a net made o f plankton gauze. The gauze is attached to a frame of aluminium tubes to keep the net suspended. It is kept in position by floats and ropes, and the opening is facing the rotating current set up by the incoming water. The pen is drained through b o t t o m and surface outlets. The surface outlet has a sieve with mesh size larger than the eggs. Some eggs will be lost this way, but clogging and subsequent sinking of the whole system is avoided. The b o t t o m outlet is connected by a tube to the b o t t o m of a barrel m o u n t e d partly submerged at the surface. From this barrel the water is p u m p e d with an automatic submersible pump. The pumping lowers the water level in the barrel and a difference in surface level between the pen and the barrel is created. This difference forces the water to flow from the pen to the barrel, thus draining the pen through the b o t t o m outlet tube. The pen is supplied with water from a 55 m depth. This is done to secure high salinity and stable temperature. The high salinity is required to give the eggs sufficient b u o y a n c y to be collected effectively.

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1. Egg diameter (mm). 2. Egg volume (litres). 3. Temperature (C).

SPAWNING RESULTS Figure 3 shows daily egg amounts, temperature and egg diameter for the 1981 spawning season. Sixty-three females with an average weight o f 8.9 kg and 23 males with an average weight o f 6.5 kg participated in the spawning. The total egg amount was 229.6 litres. With an estimated number of 600 000 eggs litre -1 the total yield was 138 million eggs. The average egg amount per female was 3.6 litres or 2.2 million eggs. The daily average yield was 3.2 litres or 1.9 million eggs with a maximum of 11.9 litres or 7.14 million eggs in one day. Egg diameter, fertilization and development was examined every day in 20 eggs. As shown in Fig. 3 egg diameter decreased steadily throughout the spawning season. Three per cent o f the investigated eggs were not fertilized, while 4.8% were dead or misdeveloping.

DISCUSSION With minor adjustments the spawning system has been in operation for 3 years. Technically it has functioned well. Before a r o o f was m o u n t e d the collecting net would rapidly be clogged by algae produced

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in the pen. With a light protecting r o o f and a rough filtering o f the inflowing water to remove large particles and plankton the collecting net only needed to be cleaned once a week. During the 1981 cod spawning season the average temperature of the water surrounding the pen was 3.6C while the pen water had an average temperature of 4.3C. The supply water to the pen averaged 5.0C, and the flow rate was 300 litres min -1 which is about t0% exchange o f the pen volume per hour. This shows that even though the heat exchange with the surrounding water masses is great it is possible to control the pen temperature to some extent. Induced spawning through light regulation has not been attempted. However, as the pen material is lightproof this should be feasible. When cod are stripped, fertilization rates and rates of misdeveloping and dying eggs vary considerably. The average values of 3% unfertilized and 4-8% dead or misdeveloping eggs obtained in the 1981 spawning season were well below normal expectancies in stripped egg groups. The amount of eggs collected in the 1981 spawning season was 229.6 litres or 138 million eggs from a brood stock o f 63 females with an average weight o f 8.9 kg. According to Oosthuitzen and Daan (1974) the ovary o f an 8.9 kg North Sea cod female contains about 4.3 million eggs, a number supported by Schopka and Hempel (1973). Applying this number to the 1981 brood stock it should have a theoretical spawning potential of 271 million eggs. This is about twice as much as the collected amount. To give a full account of this discrepancy is not possible. It can partly be attributed to incomplete spawning, sinking of unfertilized eggs and spawning before and after egg collection period. However, the largest part of the difference was due to insufficient egg collection and subsequent loss through the surface sieve. In the 1983 spawning season the mesh size of the collecting net has been increased from 500 tam to 750 tam. The flow rate o f the water supply has been increased from 300 litres min -1 to 500 litres min -~. In addition to these alterations the end cup of the egg collecting net has been replaced by a plankton gauze pen to improve egg transport through the collecting net and to assure good oxygenation o f the eggs. So far the brood stock o f 38 females averaging 9.1 kg has yielded 244.5 litres or approximately 146.7 million eggs. The theoretical production according to Oosthuitzen and Daan (1974) should have been 171 million eggs for this spawning population. The daily production is still more than 2 litres indicating a total production of more

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than 150 million eggs for the 1983 season. The conclusion is that with the latest improvements this system will collect the greater part of the spawned eggs.

CONCLUSION The described system provides an inexpensive m e t h o d of enclosing a large volume of water for the spawning of fish with pelagic eggs. The operation of the system is very simple and it only requires minimal attention. The egg quality in terms of fertilization rates and mortality has been satisfactory. The egg collection in terms o f quantity has been less than optimal considering the theoretical spawning potential of the brood stock. With the modifications carried out before the 1983 season the system will, however, collect a satisfactory part o f the total egg production.

REFERENCES Barnab~, G. (1974). Mass rearing of the bass Dicentrarchus labrax L. In: The Early Life History ofFish, ed. J. H. S. Blaxter, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 731-7. Bedier, E. (1981). Pilot scale production of sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax fry. Rapp. P.-v. R6un Cons. int. Explor. Met, 178, 530-2. Dannevig, G. M. (1910). Apparatus and methods employed at the marine fish hatchery at Fl~devig, Norway. Bull. U.S. Bur. Fish, 28, 801-9. Devauchelle, N. & Cladas, Y. (1982). Influence de la taille, du poids et du taux d'humidit6 d'oeufs de trois 6sp~ces de poissons marins sur les taux d'6closion et d'anomalies des larves. Coun. Meet. Int. Coun. Explor. Sea, 1982 (F: 19), pp. 1-7. [Mimeo.] Fabre, J. F. (1979). Les techniques de production de masse d'alevins de daurade Pagrus major au Japan. Publication de l'Association pour le Developpement de l'Aquaculture, No. 7. Flt~chter, J. (1974). Laboratory rearing of common sole Solea solea L. under controlled conditions at high density with low mortality. In: The Early Life History offish, ed. J. H. S. Blaxter, Springer Verlag, Berlin, pp. 725-30. Fujita, S. (1979). Culture of red sea bream Pagrus major and its food. In: Cultivation offish Fry and its Live Food, ed. E. Jaspers, European Mariculture Society, Spec. Publ. 4, pp. 183-97.

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Jones, A., Prickett, R. A. & Douglas, M. T. (1981). Recent developments in techniques for rearing marine flatfish larvae, particularly turbot Scophthalmus maximus L., on a pilot commercial scale. Rapp. P.-v. Rdun. Cons. int. Explor. Mer, 178, 522-6. Oosthuitzen, E. & Daan, N. (1974). Egg fecundity of North Sea cod Gadus morhua. Netherlands Journal of Sea Research, 8 (4), 378-97. Ren~, F. (1974). Rearing of gilt-head Sparus aurata. In: The Early Life History of. Fish, ed. J. H. S. Blaxter, Springer Verlag, Berlin, p. 747. Russel, F. S. (1976). The Eggs and Planktonic Stages Q( British Marine Fishes, Academic Press, London, pp. 1-524. Schopka, S. A. & Hempel, G. (1973). The spawning potential of herring Clupea harengus L. and cod Gadus morhua L. in relation to the rate of exploitation. Rapp. P.-v. Rdun. Cons. int. Explor. Met, 164, 178-85. Shelbourne, J. E. (1964). The artificial propagation of marine fish. Adv. Mar. Biol., 2, 1-83.