The Groupers and Aquaculture Investment.



Tiger Grouper Juveniles. Photo: Mahmud Ismail



Sometimes in May 2008, The Star Online reported the successful venture of  Global Hi-Q Bio-Tech (M) Sdn Bhd (GHQBT)  in indoor Tiger Grouper farming in Pulau Pangkor, Perak. I sincerely love to share such news for our aquaculture industry especially when it involved grouper species. The venture, which has at the time of reporting entered into Phase Two with  completion of its RM13mil nursery. I like what being mentioned by Johnson Chang, Managing Director of GHQBT, "The thing about Malaysia is that it is simply the perfect spot to breed this kind of fish” and he added "Malaysia’s suitability for the venture, was due to its geographical location and climate conditions". Yes, I fully agree with Johnson's statement. We enjoy such a stable climate for growing the grouper fishes and strategic location to the market places.

Pangkor Island where the said project being located:
Map Source: malsingmaps.com

The company also announced the usage of ecological re-circulating aquaculture system (ERAS), the technology which they claim as their secret to success behind indoor fish farming. While RAS is now getting popularity among our local fish farming community, I hope ERAS will enrich our aquaculture technology development in this country and hopefully there will be technological transfer to the local farmers.

I like the most of Johnson's further statements on the investment; "Global Hi-Q could secure a high net profit of between 44% and 52% and a stable return on investment of between 24% and 34%. With these figures, earnings can go up to RM500mil in just five years”. I hope our financial institutions will look up at his figures as an indicator how viable and bankable this industry can be should it be managed properly in all aspects especially with technology, expertise and good management practises.

Another point in the report that I love to share is the company intent to develop 100 local entrepreneurs in their technology. The same report said that  then Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development Minister Datuk Noh Omar, (now Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Minister) during the launch of the nursery, gave his approval for 10 entrepreneurs to enter into the training programme under the company. “Those selected will be given RM300,000 loans each from MARA, with Global Hi-Q agreeing to stand as guarantor. The participants will get to manage their own fish farms which can produce about 20,000 metric tonnes of fish fry annually,” said Noh. I do hope the Minister will be able to look into the progress and extent more helps to those fish farmers since most of the activity is now under his own ministry. At the same time, perhaps the Minister can also consider the same arrangement to other proven local companies that might want to bring along their own vendor farmers in their successful ventures.

My Groupers, Norwegian Salmon and Icelandic Tilapia

When I read the report in the FISHupdate  dated January 2011 that Norwegian Seafood Export for the year 2010 increased from 44.8 billion kroner (RM23.2 billion) in 2009 to the new highest record in last 7 years of 53.8 billion kroners(RM27.8 billion) in 2010, I presumed that their aquaculture contribution could be just around 50% of it. But, I was wrong! Further details shown  that aquaculture contribution was 62% from their seafood export. Taking 62% of Norwegian seafood export in from aquaculture production, it is 1.674 million tons of production and 33.41 billion kroners (RM17.24 billion). Their seafood export were 2.7 million tons in 2010, an increase of 93 thousand tons from previous year. The same report indicated that their export value of salmon and trout increased by 29%, with France and Russia was their largest markets while China (including Hong Kong) was the fastest growing market in 2010. All those figures really stimulate my mind for our future development in fishing and aquacultre industry.

Atlantic Salmon. Picture: Wikipedia



Another report also in FISHupdate published on November3, 2010 said that Iceland plan to produce 10,000 tons of aquaculture production within next few years. There are currently around 45 registered fish farms in Iceland, with salmon rearing and mussel farms taking on a new importance. Fish farmers are also experimenting with high value species such as turbot and cod. The very same report also said that Iceland will start their TILAPIA farming in Flúdir. They think that tilapia breeding offer extensive opportunities and working with their grain farmers on producing fodder for the fish.

Tilapia nilotica harvested from the pond in Nile Delta area. Photo: Mahmud Ismail

I always want to compare our production with those giants in aquaculture or fisheries industry like Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Peru and Chile although sometime, I also take Taiwan to be my yardstick for measuring our achievement. There are reasons why I choose to look at those countries and not our neighbouring countries like Thailand, Indonesia or China even though these countries are main seafood producers too. One of the factor that I think we are similar to those fisheries giants countries is minimum supply of manpower into fishing and aquaculture industries.

Lack of manpower in those countries have became their driving forces to modernise their industry accordingly, so they decide to use modern equipments and technology to ensure their productivity will remain competitive with other countries. In our case, we decide to import immigrant labors to fulfill our shortage, so we assume we are as competitive as our neighbouring countries in term of our productiveness. For so long, that was the picture of our fishing and aquaculture industries. In the case of main seafood producing countries as mentioned above, the technology will remain with them forever and will be improved according to time and needs.

In our case, once the labor immigrants return to their countries, we will still remain as we were before and in the need to look for cheap labourers again. Perhaps, we should re-strategize our whole fishing industry all over again. The new 21st century that we are living now will not ensure that we get the cheap labours from neighbouring countries anymore. These neighbouring countries themselves now moving forward for modernization of their fishing industry, perhaps using our ex-man powers.

Live fish market in Hong Kong. Photo: Mahmud Ismail.

Our fisheries statistics will soon be published, I presumed, based on previous years experiences. I strongly believe that our export value too will show some improvement, be in value and quantity, both from capture or aquaculture productions . I hope the export of live groupers  too will show the same trend, taking notes of intensive private sector investments in the fisheries industry reported lately in all states. While waiting for the official figures to be published, I presume Sabah, Johor, Selangor, Perak and Pulau Pinang will remain the main exporting grouper fishes in Malaysia while Terengganu and Kelantan will be following soon into the list.

Malaysia: Grouper Production 2005-2009.

21st century should make us well informed fish farmers especially on latest technological research and developments in fishing and aquaculture industries. I wish to see our farmers to get such information from various sources available now. For serious readings in aquaculture development and new technology, I strongly recommend  Global Aquaculture Advocate and Aquaculture Asia to get into latest information on who and what in this industry.

I also hope we will equip ourselves with the marketing information for our targeted markets of your products. Should Asian countries is your prospect market, the The 2009 Import and Export Market for Live Fish in Asia report should be your base information. In my case, I single out my attention into a niche China markets, where the information about it easily available in The 2009 Import and Export Market for Live Fish in China. While most of grouper farmers in this country are eyeing for the same market direction as me, I think another market perhaps can be explore, i.e. South Korea (The 2009 Import and Export Market for Live Fish in South Korea) and Japan.

We shall wait for our statistics to come out soon to see either our grouper production increase in the quantity and value as we hope too. If our production was not as high as in the case of Norwegian seafood export, we might want to look into our own targets, and keep asking what needed to be done to make ourselves at par with those giants in fishing and aquaculture ondustries. Maybe we want to look into our tilapia production too, so that we can be make a comparision between our production with Icelandic Tilapia. Unfortunately, our latest published statistic on the Ministry Of Agriculture website was only up to June 2009 while Department of Fisheries website's was still on 2008 figures.

Orange Spotted Grouper, Kerapu Pinang, Epinephelus coioides

Orange Spotted Grouper. Photo Credit: Randall J.E.

Locally, this species were called with many names as in case of other grouper fishes. Kerapu Pinang, Kerapu Balong, Kerapu Rintek and other names.  When I start to get involved with this species back in 1997, the farmers call this fish as Kerapu Pakpanang, probably because the fry of this species were imported from an area of the same name in the neighbouring country. Back then, Orange Spotted Grouper (OSG) was among the important species of groupers that were cultured in this country before the currently cultured species start to gain their popularity among the farmers. However, this species are still being cultured in this country with intended local and export market.

OSG always associated with the coral reef ecology but sometimes also can be found in the brackish water from the depth of 1 meter to 100 meters. They were also found in the brackish estuaries ecosystem especially for the juveniles. This species can be found in the seas of  37°N to 34°S and 28°E  to 180°E which include Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Andaman Sea, Malacca Straits, South China Sea, China Sea and Western Pacific Ocean. There were reports of catches of this fish in the Mediterranean Sea.

Mangrove area at the estuary where OSG can also be found. Photo: Mahmud Ismail

This species fed on fishes, squids and crustaceans. In our waters, the juveniles were found weeks after rainy season were over or weeks after heavy downpour suggesting that the spawning taken place immediately after rainy seasons is over. Some scientists predict that there are spawning aggregasion behaviour for mating time and their eggs floating below the surface level. They were pelagic during larval and juvenile stages. Some other suggest eggs, larval and juveniles were pelagic due to existing of all levels pelagically.


Price of OSG quite stable for the last 3 years. Source: Fish Marketing Organisation HK.



 In the last 3 years, this species enjoyed relatively stable price between HK$105/Catty to HK$131/Catty and the last one week from the date of this posting, this fish were priced between HK$130/ Catty to HK$140/Catty. The price of OSG was much below then our other popular species such as GG, TG, MG and Coral Trout, but always higher than GGG. In the local live fish markets, the ex-farm price were  species still remain good especially for live seafood markets. For me, should the demand for OSG getting bigger and the price is better, or we able to reduce the production costs (with better FCR, genetically improved fry),  this species is the choice for our local aquaculture industry. The researchers from this region has shown their innovation when they manage to mass produce the hybrid of TG and GG in the last few years. Why not do something on this species too? Perhaps an hybrid between OSG with GG?

Green Greasy Grouper, Kerapu Botol, Epinephelus tauvina





Green Greasy Grouper. Photo Credit: Randall, J.E


 Green Greasy Grouper, is among the first species of groupers being cultured in this country. Back in mid of 1970s, the fry of cultured fishes of this species come from the wild. During that period, there is almost no fish nursing activity commercially done in the country. Since we did have abondance of the fry of this species in our water, it were caught and sold to neighbouring countries for nursing until to gain size of 1 inch size or bigger. Most of our cage culture operators during that time have bought the 1 inch to 3 inches fry from neighboring countries and grew them in their cages until they reach the market size of 600 g - 800 g. During that period, the mortality rate of stocked fry were very high especially during 1st week to  3rd weeks from the stocking day. Lack of know-how even on cage culture methodology was rampant among the fish farmers. Since then, many efforts taken by some of the government agencies on cage culturing  and fry nursing techniques to improve the culturing techniques and innovated the nursing techniques in this country. All these efforts although taking times to makes reasonable impacts, but were surely the changing factors of the new development of our aquaculture industry in this country.

Distribution of Green Greasy Grouper. Source: fishbase.org

The green greasy grouper is the native fish for many regions. It is one of  the most wide spread among  groupers species in tropical and sub-tropical waters. It can be found in Indian Ocean,Red Sea, Andaman Sea, Malacca Straits, South China Sea, China Sea, Sulu Sea and Pacific Ocean, ranging from 30°N to 32°S and 29°E to 123°W and always associated with the coral ecology from 1meter to 300 meters. It can grow up to 80 cm length and weight up to 27 kg.



Green greasy grouper's normally found in the coral area. Photo: Mahmud Ismail.

Green Greasy Grouper common being served in our local seafood restaurants. Although not getting high price in the export markets, this species still getting reasonable price locally which make some farmers now keeping some this species in their farming system  to supply to the local live seafood outlets. As our local markets favor slightly small size fishes (600g to 800g each) the farmers find that this species easy to be farmed and within comparatively reasonable farming periods. Since this is a native species to the our waters and with locally produced fry, it having less problems than any species that using imported fry.





Giant Grouper, Kerapu Kertang, Epinephelus lanceolatus

GG as they popularly known among the researcher and farmers. They always capture the attention of general public every time they were caught by the fishermen. Records shown they can grow to hundreds of kilogram and achieve an old age of 60 years old.


Giant Grouper caught in Perak. Source: Utusan Malaysia



In my previous post, Common Grouper Fishes Of Malaysia, I did mentioned how special and popular this fish to the local of Asian populations. Believed and beloved due to the potential of superpower that they might bring, the fish naturally gain popularity to all of us, the grouper interested people, be the farmers, fishermen, fish culturists, hatchery operators, researchers and the seafood lovers.  It have been said that GG is  very rich in protein and vitamins, high in calcium, which are beneficial for bone development, able to curb blood clot, having anti-cancerous properties and also good for brain development. As in many deep water fishes, the GG skin is high in collagen, the element that known to prevent ageing process especially to the skin if being taken regularly. Even the GG scales also reported to be very nutritious and having remedial effects. Every part of GG has its own special usage, from scales, bones, fins, lips, tails, skin, liver, intestine, gill, tongue, bladder, roe or even its sperm duct . No wonder it was so much being looked after, the buyers will not waste any part of the fish and will not waste their money on this fish. 

Due to its high demand in the markets and their maturity size, this species is now considered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List. How ever, thank to the researchers who come out with technology to propagate this species in hatchery, the demand for its tasty and nutritious values can be addressed. As in my many postings, I really feels that this is the way to overcome the problem of over fishing for all species of marine organisms be it as small as sea-horses to the giant whales. Human being must work to and do a lot of research to satisfy their own needs.




Distribution of GG. Source: fishbase.com

 

Giant grouper normally found in the reef associated waters and said to be the biggest bony fish in that ecology. They are common in the shallow water and used to be found in even brackish water. They feeds on crustacean, fishes and squids. Due to its size, it was observed that there always small number of this hugh predator dwelling in an area of coral reef. The big fish always found in their "home" cave from as shallow water of 4 meters up to 100 meters deep.

As being shown in the map above, this species is most widely and largest distributed among the groupers species but rarely found in all locations. It inhibit from  throughout the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Andaman Sea, Malacca Straits, South China Sea, covering a region from the Red Sea to South Africa and eastward to the Pacific islands up to Micronesian islands. In western Pacific from southern Japan southwards to Australia.  It covers tropical and temperates waters ranging from 29°N to 39°S, 24°E to 122°W.



Clean water in the coral area makes the best place for Giant Grouper.
Photo: Sim See Hong

 

According to a scientific report, based on their observation of  250g GG fishes that being cultured in the cages, this fish achieved its maturity in the fourth year. With an average growth rate of 19.51 to 22.76 gm/day and length increase at 0.035 to 0.58 cm/day, at the end of fourth year, its sizes were around 28.27 to 28.31 kg. Some reports says that GG can grow up to 400 kg.

The growth rate of 19.51 to 22.76 gm/day is considered very good growth rate indeed for aquaculture species. If our fish farmers stock their fry of 250 gm each, theoretically they only need an average of 64 days to get their GG to achieve market size 1.5 kg / fish! Even if we give another 64 days for its culture periods, this species IS still the 5 stars fish for all of us!  The same report confirmed that GG can achieve 1 kg weight within 4 months.  No wonder in Malaysia even GG fry price is around RM30 each. Hey, we not yet discuss the price of GG!

 

4 years old for maturity is considered not that too long for us to work with this species. Further, we know their weight during that time is around 28 kg and above. So, keeping our own broodstocks from our own fry, do the genetic selection process based on their growth rate could be our option for this species.

According to an assessment done in 2006, the small size GG price was around US$169/kg in HongKong. The small size GG (1.5 - 1.8kg/fish) were more preferred by the outlets in that market. HongKong was reported as the main importer for this species but some fishes were trans-shipped to mainland China. The other markets including South East Asian countries. I believe mainland China will become the major importer of this species in the very near future, and it will only be limited by the ability to supply the market size GG to that market by producing countries.

There Always Some Excitements When Giant Groupers Were Caught!

I just want to share some archive news back in August 2010 on this species in Utusan Malaysia Online - Dalam Negeri. Every year, there always such news in our local newspapers which shown that the excitement for this fish remain intact among all of us. I hope you enjoy reading it but at the same time may spend one minute to think how many more of such sizes GG remain in our water. With the new technology in GG hatching and farming, I hope we will continuously be able to enjoy the tasty taste of GG (and the power it may have) and at the same time reducing the pressure on the wild caught stocks.

 

 Another archive news that attract my attention in early 2010 reported in The Borneo Post which is the kind of news that I love to read and share with everyone in the industry. It was reported that KFH (Kuwait Finance House) did making inroads into the country’s aquaculture sector via acquisitions of two aquaculture businesses namely KS Aquaculture Sdn Bhd (KS Aquaculture) and Ikmaju Sdn Bhd (Ikmaju).  These such of move that aquaculture and fisheries industry in this country are hoping, for long, long time. Past should be the periods when anything fishy belong to the poor, non educated and weak in management. This industry is really a business of its kind and deserve proper attention from corporate players.  

 

I also want to share another archive news way back in February 2007 in our English newspaper thestar.com.my where it was reported that our target of production for GG by the year 2010 will be 122,000 tonnes. I do not actually care either it was wrongly reported or not, but want to share my happiness that at least we do have some targets to be achieved. 2010 already over and soon the statistic on fisheries production will be released. We may see the result. I will be very happy if  we surpassed our target but if not, just try again and harder this year. It is not a failure after all, but slight delay in implementation.

 


Malaysia: Grouper Fish Production

 

In my previous post, Common Grouper Fishes Of Malaysia I did my analysis of our grouper productions for the last 5 years based on the official published figures which I re-post again here. Regardless of what was the results of previous years production patterns, I strongly believe that 122,000 tonnes production is achievable if we want it and if we work for it. It is just only 10 times higher of our current 2009 figures and that 122,000 tonnes is just nothing compared to market demands of this species. I hope to be part of those contributing to achieve that figures directly or indirectly, God willing.

Coral Trout, Kerapu Bara, Plectropomus leopardus .


 


Coral Trout, P. leopardus

 

This species already in the Malaysian aquaculture and fisheries industry for quite sometimes, they have been sought after by the fishermen and aqriculturist as well as the seafood restauran operators.  Lately, they are commonly cultured especially in Sabah, Pulau Pinang, Perak, Selangor and Johor. The landing from the wild catches always sporadic all over nation.






Transporting Live Coral Trout in Semporna, Sabah.



This fish getting very good price in local and export markets. In some places in Malaysia, this fish will be caught alive. The off-sizes fishes will be kept  in the cages and be fed with fresh fish until they grow to the market size. Although this method of farming has been debated due to utilisation of natural resources and not that efficient in reducing the pressure on natural stocks plus the usage of food fish to fed the fish, I still consider this method as a value addition process to increase the value of the off-sizes Coral Trout that have been caught by the fishemen.

The commercial farming of this species always using the imported fry from other fry producing nations. There is no report of fry production of this species in Malaysia so far though there could be some unreported productions from the commercial hatcheries.




Distribution of Coral Trout. Source: fishbase.org

 

In the wild, this species always associated with coral areas at the depth of 3m to 100m. It usually can be found from 35°N to 30°S and 99°E to 178°W, from Eastern Indian Ocean to Western Pacific Ocean. The biggest recorded weight was 23.6 kg and with body length 1.2 meters though normally found was around 0.5 kg to 3.5 kg and with body length between 20 cm to 35cm. The longest repoted age of this fish was 26 years. The fish sexually mature at the length of 21-60cm. The adult fish feed on fishes and squids. They are protogynous hermaphrodite (initially as functional females, then turn into functional males at certain age). They normally spawn during new moon phase and having spawning aggregations behaviour during mating process in the reef area.  Their fertilize eggs will float just below the surface of the sea water until hatched. The juveniles of Coral Trout feed on small fishes and crustaceans and normally found in the demersal of shallow coral areas.

In term of price, I saw this species have enjoyed very high price for the last few years with last year highest price of HK$700/Catty and lowest HK$300 and average price of HK$545/Catty making it a very good high value species in HongKong market. The colour of this species also suit to  our Asian taste for happy colours of our foods. Red and golden spotted always associated with good luck and prosperity to us, the unique Asian people.

With good demand and good price, it really supprise to see that this species is not among the popular marine fishes that be able to be reproduced in this country. Perhaps, we do really must strategize our priorities of the targetted species that we must pay attention to. I read an article published in an aquaculture journal back in 2001 that some countries already started producing the fry of this fish way back in 1985.  We hope to see some changes this year and hope there will be some report on the production of this species by Malaysian hatcheries.