News

At EAS2024 in Copenhagen our European Percid Fish Culture group had a workshop and a network moment. Our EPFC workshop, open for everyone, was held on 26 August and had a nice audience what lead to interesting discussions.

From 23-25 October 15 people of the EPFC-CG assembled in Belgium to talk about hatchery bottlenecks, new insights and protocols. This is a short report of this workshop.

Each year EPFC organises the first day of EAS congress a workshop for all EPFC members and those interested in Percid fish. The dinner organized during EAS is to bring the community together and enlarge your network.

With this student grant EPFC-CG intends to help members who are companies to solve their bottlenecks in the production. At the same time students get the opportunity to obtain insights and experience during the research in the production process on a fish farm or another aquaculture stakeholders (technique or fish feed producers).

The time may come that Pikeperch can be ASC labelled. But first the input of pikeperch farmers is needed to assure the standards are pikeperch proof.

In beautiful Bern the Core Group members of EPFC had a meeting. First to evaluate the past 3 years of EPFC-CG and look forward to the coming 3 years. All present members could give their input on future EPFC-CG activities. Secundly, we learned, discussed and thought about selective breeding in percid fish and what could be the function of EPFC-CG in this.

Guirec Dewavrin was former employee of Percitech, EPFC-CG member. He has writen down his 40 years of experience gathered in 19 countries , alongside more than 63 professional teams in this new book.

This year in Rimini (Italy) we get the change to have again a session on our favourite fish species. Of course this will depend on the amount of percid fish related abstracts submitted for EAS2022.

Our newest EPFC-CG member the Charles Sturt University is Australia’s largest regional university. It hosts the Agriculture, Water and Environment Institute which is an important regional hub for fisheries and water-related research.

Kaizerzander applied 2 methods to optimise the spawning results with pikeperch. These protocols were developed by MATE HAKI.

Bruner, John Clay, DeBruyne, Robin L (Editors). 2021. Yellow Perch, Walleye, and Sauger: Aspects of Ecology, Management, and Culture Springer Fish and Fisheries Series, Cham, Switzerland Vol. 41:1-402 pp.

Evaluation of growth performance of pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) fed with different commercial diets formulated for percid fish during grow-out phase.

This new system needed to serve two purposes:

Possibility to conduct feeding trials with an option for digestibility research.

Be the optimal system for fish from 0.1g to 10g, a grow-out for juveniles.

During her doctoral research, dr. Linda Tschirren, developped an app to help fish farmers evaluating how fish feel in their farm. The model her app uses, named MyFishCheck, allows the evaluation of welfare in five distinct modules: farm management, water quality, fish group behaviour, fish external and fish internal appearance, thereby yielding five individual grades categorising welfare ranging from critical, to poor, to acceptable, and good.

NAIK HAKI investigated a lot of approaches to create a pikeperch broodstock. According to Uros Ljubobratovic one of the most promising approach is a combination of keeping the animals first outdoor followed by stocking in indoor recirculated aquaculture system (RAS).

As the population skyrockets and our natural resources remain limited, we find ourselves in a difficult situation. We must continue to increase the food productivity to survive, and reduce our impact on the environment. This can clearly be seen in the fishing industry. Today, the demand for farmed fish is evermore increasing. Yet, many aquaculture systems generate high amounts of wastewater containing compounds such as suspended solids, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus. Treatment is necessary to prolong the water re-use in a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS).

Aqualota Hatchery & Consultancy and Odisee University of Applied Sciences, both members of the EPFC Core group, were recently featured in the September/October issue of Hatchery International.

This year Inagro hosted the first internship in pikeperch larviculture. The aim of this hands-on training was to share the knowledge that Inagro has developed over the past ten years in the production of pikeperch larvae in controlled conditions.

This year Inagro succeeded to produce around 2 million pikeperch larvae, this is a 35% improvement in hatching rate compared to last year! Some of the fertilized eggs were sent to a foreign research partner, another part stayed at the aquaculture department of Inagro.

From 17-21 September 2018, EPFC organized the second edition of the international hands-on workshop in off-season reproduction of pikeperch (Sander lucioperca). This event was hosted and facilitated by Inagro, an agricultural research and consulting organization based in Belgium. Two top experts in reproduction of pikeperch came to Inagro to teach an international group of participants the tricks of the trade. Now, each participant has the necessary knowledge and skills to artificially reproduce pikeperch outside of the natural season.

From 8th to 9th of March 2017 EPC organised in conjunction with Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) a workshop on reproduction in percid culture in Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland. Delegates from 12 European countries spent the two days discussing a wide range of issues surrounding percid reproduction.