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Grouper fingerling production in Australia: Challenges and achievements Richard Knuckey, The Company One
Figure 1. Giant grouper broodstock health check.
Groupers form the basis of a billion-dollar Live Reef Food Fish trade. This trade relies on supply of a diversity of species and remains dependent on grouper and other species sourced from reef systems across SE Asia, the Pacific and Indian Oceans and Australia. Grouper aquaculture has a long-established presence in SE Asia where it is now the major source for several key grouper species. However, species diversity is a major obstacle to aquaculture becoming the dominant source for all
Hatchery Feed & Management Vol 9 Issue 3 2021
groupers and to relieving pressure on reef systems. Grouper broodstock management and larval rearing is challenging. While grouper species share major challenges such as susceptibility to nodavirus and iridovirus, each species has its own peculiarities in breeding that increases the difficulty to successful fry production. A number of these challenges have been alleviated through the production of hybrid grouper and particularly Epinephelus lanceolatus x E. fuscoguttatus