Development of larviculture techniques for the enhanced production of grouper Epinephelus coioides

Abstract

Since 1985, larval grouper rearing in the laboratory has been established in Taiwan (Lin et al., 1986), and commercial seed production was over ten millions fry in 1995. However, the survival rate was less than 1% and production fluctuated due to viral nervous necrosis disease (VNN) and iridovirus-like infection (Chao and Pang, 1997; Chi et al., 1997). An almost standardized rearing procedure of grouper "Epinephelus coioides" has been developed after many improvements, and a constant production of fry without viral symptom was achieved. This report describes the developed techniques for larviculture of grouper performed in Tungkang Marine- Laboratory, TFRI, Taiwan.