With fish catch getting scarcer from marine waters it is about time growing fish in cages at the coastal waters of the sea where overcrowding to avoid fish kill and other problems is nil.
There are probably many protected coves in your area which could be utilized for growing marine fish in cages. One showcase of productive fish farming is raising such species as milkfish (bangus), pompano, seabass, lapulapu and snapper.
What one has to need is a small area where one can set up a cage measuring 15 meters in length by 15 meters in width and 5 meters in depth. Such an area could produce thirty five to forty tons of milk fish or pompano in just one cage. Such yield is equivalent to ten hectares of earthen fishpond under the extensive system of culturing.
In setting up this kind of venture, requires a reasonable investment that could range a several thousand dollars for each fish cage. There are steel fish cages from Chile, circular cages from Europe and Taiwan.
The advantage of fish grown in cages is that they can be easily harvested and marketed them live. Hence, they command a much higher price. The area which you supposedly to set up your cages is virtually typhoon free.
The other advantage is that even the space is limited it can be stacked with a lot of fishes because the water is of high quality and there’s no need to pump the water as often required in earthen fishponds.
Fewer workers are also required in sea cage culture. However, one needs to employ some divers who would take care and check if there is damage especially if they use the net as cage.
Nets need to be checked regularly if there are algae that have develop on the net which can obstruct the free flow of water. Fish in cages has to be feed entirely with commercial feeds.
To produce a kilo of milkfish (bangus), the fish consumes 2.8 kilos of feeds worth US$ 1.50. Usually, most sought size of milkfish are three pieces of the same in a kilo that fetches a price of US$ 2.00 a kilo.
Pompano, seabass and snapper are also promising high value species which could be grown for domestic and export markets. Live seabass and snapper command a high price. It could fetch up from US$ 10.00 to US$ 15.00 a kilo in a domestic market. The preferred size is five hundred to six hundred grams per fish.
In any aquaculture project undertaking the setting up of a fish hatchery puts one to a distinct advantage by supplying the fingerling and other high valued species in which sea farmers are growing.
The availability of the fingerling means that investors need not to worry anymore about its supply because they know where to get now the ready source of their fingerling requirements.
