36 | INTERNATIONAL AQUAFEED | May-June 2015

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Welcome to Expert Topic. Each issue will take an in-depth look at a particular species and how its feed is managed.

COBIAEXPERT TOPIC

Cobia: is it the next big thing? by Roy Palmer, Aquaculture Without Frontiers, Australia

Everyone wants to be in on the next big thing, be that a speculative share, a new technology gadget and yes, even a new fish!

The success of salmon has people dream-ing of the new discovery that will be salmon’s white fish competitor. There is a definite demand for this. There are a number of spe-cies that have potential and one of them is cobia (Rachycentron canadum).

In the wild, cobia is a highly valued sea-food species - a very popular game fish well regarded because of its fighting abilities and the delicious taste. Wild cobia are rarely seen in large groups, so only a small quantity is wild-caught and, generally speaking, professional fishermen do not specifically target cobia; they only harvest them incidentally when fishing for other species.

Quality harvested aquaculture cobia doesn't taste fishy. It's white and firm like swordfish. It can be grilled, sautéed or served as sashimi or in a bouillabaisse.

The FAO says worldwide farmed cobia pro-duction was less than 2,500 metric tons 10 years

ago but in 2009 production surpassed 30,000 metric tons, with more than 80 percent in China - the world’s largest producer - and Taiwan. A sign that US cobia imports are increasing is that the US International Trade Commission gave cobia an import code (thus being able to dif-ferentiate from unspecified finfish).

As much as China has been the leading producer of farmed cobia, many other coun-

tries are developing technology to aquaculture cobia, hence global production of cobia is on the rise and it is appearing on menus more and more. Ocean-cage operations are under way in the Bahamas, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia and a number of Latin American countries including Belize, Ecuador, etc. but this article will look specifically at Brazil, Panama and Australia.

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BrazilThe difficulty in Brazil with cobia farming was that it was not well recognised as a high-quality food fish in some regions, particularly in the South. However, this scenario is changing, and first farmed cobia productions have been well accepted by local consumers, restaurants and fresh fish markets. The increasing demand for high quality fresh food fish and seafood, combined with the lack of local fish production, has driven up the price of farmed cobia. Currently, the emerging cobia production in Southern Brazil is being sold for US$18-20/kg for whole gutted fish.

With an increasing demand for fresh fish, an increasing production of cobia is expected and for that reason, this promising market has attracted the interest of medium and large entrepreneurs for cobia cage culture. One issue holding these farmers back at present is the lack of high quality commercial diets for marine fish. This continues to be the biggest obstacle to development of cobia aquaculture in Brazil.

In Brazil, there are several promising marine fish species with great aquaculture potential. In the last seven years there has been a strong interest from the government through the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture to promote marine fish culture starting with key species such as cobia. This native species was chosen for several reasons including fast growth rates, good flesh quality, and well-developed husbandry protocol that could easily be adapted to local culture conditions. Therefore, research programs, partnerships and regional hatcheries were created to promote marine fish culture.

Wild cobia is mainly captured on the northeast coast of Brazil, where it is appreciated by consumers in many restaurants. The high water temperatures in this region throughout the year allow a cer-

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tain consistency in wild cobia supply. However, wild cobia is rarely caught in southern Brazilian waters, particularly during the winter, as water temperatures drop below the cobia’s requirements. As a result wild cobia is largely unknown in southern markets. For this reason, cobia production was questioned due to its market potential and the challenges of promoting an unknown fish with a nonexistent demand.

Clearly though, having high-quality flesh in a market where there was a lack of fresh marine fish supply and an increasing demand enabled an opening for fresh cobia. It is now well accepted by local consumers, restaurants and fresh fish markets. Maybe not surprisingly, the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo markets easily and readily absorbed the first farmed cobia productions. Whilst this is still a minor produc-tion in comparison with the potential consumer market of these two major centres in southern Brazil, it is a good indicator of the potential of marine fish culture and the demand for fresh fish.

The majority of the production is absorbed by fine Japanese restau-rants where cobia is served as sashimi. Due to its high-quality flesh and favorable texture, the Japanese chefs appreciate this species. In addi-tion, other restaurants are serving cobia in a variety of ways to attend the consumer’s needs. The freshness of the final product is important, and therefore having the culture sites close (most farms are located less than three-four hours’ drive away) to the final consumers enables efficient logistics. As a result, a fresh, high-quality product is delivered from farms to the restaurant doors.

The high selling price is working well for the farms as they have to deal with high operational costs including floating cages, nets and particularly feed costs. A lack of commercially available diets for marine fish in Brazil, especially one that meets the specific requirements of

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cobia, is holding back the opportunity but effort is going into research and development.

Farmed cobia has several characteristics that lead to a consistent promising market, including freshness and high-quality flesh being a good source of health-promoting omega 3 fatty acids. To establish a niche market, it requires demand for a specific product, and more importantly a consistent supply of high quality product. Aquaculture exhibits the benefits of controlling the production cycle to meet con-sumer demands in terms of forecasting production and consistency in size and quality of the final product. In this context, farmed cobia is a potential candidate for a niche market; however, it is important to high-light the necessity of industry support and sustained marketing effort.

Whilst the increasing demand for fresh seafood and marine fish is expected to continue into the future in Brazil, there is still much to be done regarding feeds and farming techniques.

Luís André Sampaio from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande is involved in a current study on the performance of juvenile cobia reared in low salinities (three and six percent), with or without alkalinity cor-rection in a RAS. He is presenting at WA2015 in Jeju and will highlight that the survival rate was 100 percent at all treatments, but growth parameters (final weight, weight gain, SRG and feed intake) decreased significantly at salinities of six and three percent when compared with the control. Results suggest that cobia has a limited euryhaline capac-ity, but they can be reared in low salinity (three and six percent) for six weeks with no mortality. However, when reared in three percent salinity, juvenile cobia can benefit from alkalinity supplementation and the higher pH associated with this, in order to sustain better growth than those reared in the low alkalinity treatment.

AustraliaIn Australia, cobia (previously known as black kingfish) are not often seen in the fish markets but are a prized species for tropical recreation-al fishermen. They generally can be encountered near reefs and other structures from south-western West Australia, around the north of the country and as far south as the central coast of New South Wales. In the wild they can grow to well over 45-50 kg and are strong fighters.

Information was filtering through to Australia from various studies on the species. The information was exciting. The news was that cobia was a very fast growing species - the maximum age recorded for a 1.6m, 50kg+ cobia in the Gulf of Mexico was only 11 years of age. Juveniles grew to more than 60cm in their first year, and fish a metre long were only around three years old. Females matured in their second year when around 80 to 90cm, while male fish often matured in their first year.

Scientists discovered that cobia spawned between April and September in the northern hemisphere (that region's spring and sum-mer) and in Australia the spawning period occurred September to June. The size at first maturity for 50 percent of male and female cobia in Australia was 78cm, again at about two years of age. Additionally, cobia produce excessive numbers of eggs.

Scientists working in the Gulf of Mexico highlighted that individual cobia spawned a number of times throughout the season. Evidence was that the fish spawned as often as once every five to 12 days. It was not unusual to see larger fish spawning up to 1.5 million eggs per batch, but the average 'batch fecundity' of cobia in Australia was shown to be

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even higher, at 2.8 million eggs per spawning cycle, with the spawning frequency assessed to be around seven to eight days.

Due to their high energy needs associated with their fast growth, they were not considered prissy feeders. In the wild, dietary studies showed that they are bottom feeders, seemingly enjoying crustaceans, especially crabs.

The Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) cre-ated a project on cobia, which aimed to build on previous research by Queensland aquaculture producer Pacific Reef Fisheries and the Department for Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI).

During this research they discovered that the financial potential for fish farmers is very significant, primarily because cobia can grow up to 10 kilograms within their first year - this is double the speed of bar-ramundi and triple the speed of Atlantic salmon.

Although cobia are not fussy eaters in the wild, things are not the same in captivity, and it was important, just like with any new farmed species, to ensure the diet mix is right.

Other problems thwarted Pacific Reef in the early days. Heavy stock losses due to bird predation caused some angst but this was resolved by installing anti-predator cages for the fish to live in as fingerlings. Additional issues were created as the fish were being grown in prawn ponds, which was not ideal due to their shallow depth.

The CRC work also planned on developing reliable and robust controlled spawning methods for cobia, utilising hormonal, social and/or environmental manipulation; production of sufficient fingerlings to enable the on-grow commercial quantities of cobia for market; developing pilot scale cobia fingerling production by the hatchery; for-mulating diets designed to meet the specific nutritional and energetic requirements of cobia and developing and field testing new farmed cobia product(s) with high market acceptance.

Pacific Reef have shown they have the technical capability and

infrastructure to produce cobia for the marketplace and to target the appropriate market sector (high end restaurants and sashimi) for the product. Recently the company won accolades at the 2015 Sydney Royal Show Fine Food – Aquaculture Awards, taking the awards for Champion Fresh Fish (Classes 7 and 8) Sashimi Grade cobia.

“We want to be Australia’s biggest and largest aquaculture facil-ity growing sustainable product for the Australian and the overseas market,” said Maria Mitris, Operations Manager of her family’s business, Pacific Reef Fisheries.

The company, family-owned and funded, is able to control all aspects of their operation from the high tech hatchery at Guthalungra to the farming operation at Ayr. Their main business is the production of approximately 700 tonnes of black tiger prawns per annum.

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Panama You cannot mention cobia without involving the name of Brian O’Hanlon.

Some regard Brian O'Hanlon as an overnight success story with his Open Blue cobia from Panama hitting menus in the USA. Typically of such success stories, though, it has taken many long, hard years tackling obstacles head-on to achieve such ‘overnight’ status.

Originally from Long Island, O’Hanlon knew from an early stage in his life that he wanted to be in aquaculture. His father was wholesaling fish, the family had a long history in the industry and the business got into his blood. Even in the early stages of his career he was experiment-ing with a 2000-gallon tank in his parents' basement, endeavoring to grow red snapper.

Some 17 years ago O’Hanlon met up with Daniel Benetti from the University of Miami and managed to secure a position on one of Benetti’s courses. This helped focus his intentions, but many years of frustration due to prohibitive US regulations that made growth impos-sible ensured that he would have to work outside the USA if he was to achieve his dream.

It was not until 2009 that O’Hanlon finally moved to Panama where he acquired Pristine Oceans, another deep-ocean cobia farming ven-ture, and created Open Blue.

Benetti is a believer in cobia in that he has often said that they are as close to a perfect species as he has ever seen. This has been a long quest by Benetti and he has been the reason many people have got excited about this species.

Having finally started production in 2012, offshore cobia producer Open Blue has been ramping up its volumes and promoting and mar-keting the product since then and has been offering product every week of the year. From small beginnings, production is now very com-mercial, with one seafood wholesaler in New York reportedly selling fillets direct to the public at US$16.95 per pound.

Over the years O’Hanlon has always been strong about not being caught in the commodity business, so he has invested heavily in ensuring that his fish is getting to high-end markets. Logistically, harvesting is organ-ised to link to air transport and ensuring that the quality is consistent.

To further add value, the group have recently completed a brand new hatchery in Panama and are hoping to expand production through value-adding in their new factory. Additionally, they have secured Global GAP certification, and are now considering ISO 90001 and BRC standards.

Open Blue is ambitious: the fish is farmed eight miles from the coast, in cages of 6,400 cubic meters. The cages are submerged 30 feet under the sea surface, and are each anchored to a submerged mooring grid with 40 anchors of 1.5 metric tons each. The anchors reach 220 feet deep. To alert boats of the cages’ presence, the buoys are fitted with lights and transponders which will alert any approaching ships. Each cage can take 50,000 fish, or 130-150t, creating a pen density of 20 kilos per cubic meter.

Benetti and O’Hanlon are to be congratulated for their work on cobia to date, and both of them would rather that they were able to do this in the USA, but due to regulations and bureaucracy this is not

allowed. It is a dilemma facing many so-called developed countries, and whilst many of them talk the talk at various world conventions they have failed to see the opportunity that is being missed. So whilst mining and drilling are seemingly allowed carte blanche, opportunities in the quest for sustainable quality seafood are cast aside.

Benetti and many scientists have argued for the past several years that such open-ocean fish-farming is the environmentally sensitive way of saving the world's seafood demand, because from a food production angle it creates a higher yield with a lower impact.

Feed is an important research element as, like salmon, cobia are predators that need fishmeal in their diet and with cobia being big fish-eating fish there is a need to have a limited impact on the ecosys-tem. Benetti is experimenting with a fishmeal that is part soy mix part protein. A fact which is often forgotten when people complain about fish feed ratios is that it takes ten pounds of wild fish to produce a pound of large fish in nature, hence aquaculture is many times more sustainable than nature itself.

This is why we are seeing feed organisations like the BioMar Group recently signing a Memorandum of Understanding with leading Chinese feed producer Tongwei Co. Ltd to establish a Joint Venture dedicated to producing and selling high performance feed for aquaculture in China. The product range for the new Joint Venture factory will include starter and grower feeds for marine and fresh water species such as sea bass, sea bream, cobia, turbot, bass, grouper, trout, sturgeon, tilapia, eel, and shrimp.

The simple question that fish farmers will always ask is about the speed of turning their investment from an output of dollars to an input of dollars, and clearly if you were starting a fish farm and you could raise ten-pound fish in one year, or another fish species that takes two years to grow one pound, the decision is obvious.

Marketing is still the key as the fish is not well known but surely it is the dream of any good chef to find something that’s reliably sourced year-round and grows quickly and sustainably and tastes delicious! So hopefully it is just a timing issue before it becomes a staple in all restaurants.

One major word of caution - not every venture is going to be suc-cessful. In the USA a freshwater facility in Virginia which was producing farmed cobia had to close. Research efforts were not enough to enhance commercial aquaculture of freshwater cobia and demonstrate its techni-cal and economic feasibility. The fish simply did not grow as fast as it should have and the partnership involved closed down the operations.

ReferencesBrazil information thanks to Artur N. Rombenso (Centre for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences and Department of Zoology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois 62901, USA), Andre Araújo (Fundação Instituto de Pesca do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Angra dos Reis, Brazil) and Luis A. Sampaio (Laboratory of Marine and Estuarine Fish Culture, Institute of Oceanography, Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil).

Website: http://www.fishwatch.gov/seafood_profiles /species/cobia/species_pages/cobia.htm

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA_Cn6zIb4E

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