Types of Aquaculture

The growth rate of worldwide aquaculture has been sustained and rapid, averaging about 8% per year for over 30 years, while the take from wild fisheries] has been essentially flat for the last decade. The aquaculture market reached $86 billion in 2009. Aquaculture is an especially important economic activity in China.

Eel farming is an aquaculture industry that takes place worldwide. It specialises in raising and growing eels, which provide a nutritious meat, to be sold at market. Growing young eels on until they are large enough to be sold for meat can be a lucrative business.

However, the wild Atlantic salmon fishery is commercially dead; after extensive habitat damage and overfishing, wild fish make up only 0.5% of the Atlantic salmon available in world fish markets. The rest are farmed, predominantly from aquaculture in Chile, Canada, Norway, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Tasmania.

Flounders and sole may appear similar, but flounder is in a broader taxonomic grouping, and the fish have some differences regarding their bodies and distributions across the globe. What's in a Name? The taxonomic order Flatfish comes from the fact that its constituent members have flat bodies.

Light Tuna – There are a variety of fish that fall in the “light tuna” category. This tuna typically comes from either Skipjack or Yellowfin tuna. The meat is darker in color – somewhere between a light tan and tan-ish pink.

Spanish mackerel is found off the Atlantic coast of the United States and in the Gulf of Mexico. Management NOAA Fisheries and the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Councils manage the Spanish mackerel fishery.

Cod from aquaculture are popular in the market and often obtains higher prices than wild caught cod. The farming of Atlantic cod has also a long history. In the 1880s the Norwegian sea-captain G.M. Dannevig started experiments with the artificial rearing of cod.

Channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) supports a $450 million/yr aquaculture industry. The US farm-raised catfish industry began in the early 1960s in Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Channel catfish quickly became the major catfish grown, as it was hardy and easily spawned in earthen ponds.