A review on cobia, Rachycentron canadum, aquaculture

Abstract

Cobia, Rachycentron canadum, is an important species for aquaculture worldwide. Production technology from egg to market was established in the early 1990s and continues to be perfected to this day. This species exhibits extraordinary scope for growth and can reach between 4 and 8 kg in 1 year, with females growing almost twice as fast and large as males. Despite continuous progress in maturation, spawning, larval rearing, fingerling production, nutrition, health management, genetics, and growout technology, overall cobia aquaculture production worldwide has been slow in the last decade. One of the biggest challenges remains the development of practical commercial feeds that are ecologically and economically efficient for this species.Feed conversion ratios are still very high, ranging from 2.0 to 3.0:1. In addition to nutritional challenges, diseases such as Photobacterium, Amyloodinium ocellatus, and Brooklynella hostilis continue to impact cobia aquaculture production worldwide. Genetics and breeding programs for cobia are still at their infancy. We report on current status of cobia

Full-length transcriptome from different life stages of cobia (Rachycentron canadum, Rachycentridae)

“…Cobia (R. canadum), the only extant species in the family Rachycentridae, is a marine warm-water species distributed worldwide, particularly in tropical and subtropical climates, except for the central and eastern Pacific. In recent decades, cobia emerged as one of the most promising species for mariculture due to certain attributes like rapid growth rate, good meat quality and high market value, with a global production of around 40,000 tons [2][3][4][5] . In India, cobia was first successfully bred in 2010 at the Mandapam Regional Centre of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute in Tamil Nadu [6][7][8] .…”

Selection of Autochthonous Yeasts Isolated from the Intestinal Tracts of Cobia Fish (Rachycentron canadum) with Probiotic Potential

“…Cobia farming has been reported since the 1990s in Taiwan, and its juvenile production technologies have been described since 1997 [ 4 ]. Its economic potential is associated with its good meat quality, rapid growth, and easy adaptability to captivity [ 5 , 6 ] and its high demand among Asian consumers, especially in Taiwan and Japan [ 7 ]. The increase in demand for cobia is evident worldwide, is its production expanded from 3 T in 1995, to 40,522 T in 2020 [ 8 ].…”

“…The supply of high-quality juveniles for large-scale production is one of the main limitations to intensifying the production of marine species [ 9 ], including cobia [ 6 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Therefore, during the last 30 years, scientific research has been focused on the study of the morphophysiological development of larvae and juveniles of various fish species, especially of the digestive tract and its functionality [ 13 ] to promote healthy nutrition [ 9 ].…”

Comparative gonad transcriptome analysis in cobia (Rachycentron canadum)

“…In recent years, research in cobia aquaculture has been focused on addressing knowledge gaps in commercial production, nutrition, and the use of genomic techniques to enhance its aquaculture performance. This is a response to its apparent slow growth in production during the 2010s ( Tveterås et al, 2019 ; Benetti et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Apart from limiting the potential advantage of a monosex female population culture, this also results in another major complication in cobia aquaculture: a breeding program with inefficient selection of broodstock where fast growing individuals, notably females, dominate the pool of breeding candidates when selection is based purely on weight. Without the ability to accurately test for the genotypic sex of cobia, breeding programs are unable to capitalise on potential genetic gains in desired traits necessary for commercial production such as fast growth, disease resistance, and survival ( Benetti et al, 2021 ).…”