Experimental Marine Cage Culture Of Striped Bass In Northern Waters

Abstract

Striped bass fingerlings of two sizes, 1.7 and 6.0g, were stocked in the fall of 1974 into floating cages placed in a sea water lagoon off of Shelter Island, New York. Duplicate stocking densities of 100, 200, 300 and 400 fish per 1.82m3 cage were established. Low water temperature (1.0 C) occurred in January and February 1975 and resulted in heavy mortality of the caged fish. In order to prevent the complete loss they were removed and overwintered in indoor pools from February until June at which time they were restocked in the floating cages at densities of 50 and 90 fish per cage. The mean growth rates by stocking densities indicated that fastest growth occurred with 100 fish per cage. Owing to mishaps which included escapes from the cages and mortalities, only 14% of the fingerlings stocked were harvestable as 0.25 and 0.5 Kg fish in the fall of 1975. The mean dress‐out weight of these 280 fish was 81%. Relative food conversion values were between 1.4 and 1.8:1.

Performance of Striped Bass reared at mid‐Atlantic and Gulf coast photothermal regimes

“…To minimize these problems, the time in land-based systems has been extended (up to 1.0 kg; postsmolt production) in some operations to make the fish more robust before exposure to open-sea pen conditions and possible sea lice infestation (Bjørndal and Tusvik 2020). Similar to advanced smolt production, a prolonged land-based nursery phase was employed for the Atlantic fish in the current study because their small size in the fall precludes net-pen stocking due to poor coldwater tolerance (Valenti et al 1976). This necessitated holding fish in land-based systems prior to stocking in the late spring at the start of their second year.…”

“…During initial nursery growth trials, the Atlantic and Gulf strains (Table 1) were raised in the systems that were described above until they were approximately 400 and 160 days postspawn (dps), respectively. This time disparity reflected the need to maintain Atlantic coast juveniles in a land-based system for their first year to avoid exposure to cold winter temperatures as small juveniles (Valenti et al 1976). The fish were maintained in fifteen 1500-L tanks (3 tanks/strain) at an initial stocking rate of 35 fish/ tank (Atlantic) and 60 fish/tank (Gulf).…”

“…In controlled experiments, no differences were found in tank‐reared Striped Bass juveniles grown in freshwater or full‐strength seawater (Kenter et al 2018). Although Striped Bass have been reared in net‐pens in estuarine (Woods et al 1983) and full‐strength seawater (Valenti et al 1976), temperature rather than salinity appears to be a greater factor influencing survival and it was recommended that fish should be at least 10 g before stocking in net‐pens in the mid‐Atlantic (e.g., coastal New York; Valenti et al 1976). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the growth of Striped Bass to market size using photothermal regimes and husbandry practices commensurate with net‐pen culture off the mid‐Atlantic coast (NY) and in the Gulf of Mexico.…”