Coastal Aquaculture and Mariculture (2+1)

Unit 5 - Finfish culture systems

5.1. Culture of milkfish

• The milkfish Chanos chanos , the only species of the family Chanidae, has a wide distribution.
• It does not form a capture fishery of any significance and its importance is based on the large scale farming in over 400,000 ha of coastal impoundments in Southeast Asia. Its culture originated in Indonesia and spread to the Philippines and Taiwan.
• Though essentially marine fish of the Indian and Pacific oceans, the young ones spend their life in inshore estuarine areas and ascend rives to the fresh water zones.
• They are highly euryhaline and can live in fresh to hyper-saline waters.
• They tolerate temperature from 15-40^oC but the optimum is between 20 and 33^oC.