FAU Institutional Repository http://purl.fcla.edu/fau/fauir This paper was submitted by the faculty of FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. Notice: ©2005 American Fisheries Society. This article may be cited as: Tucker, J. W., Jr. (2005). Grouper culture. In A. M. Kelly and J. Silverstein (eds.), Aquaculture in the 21st century: Proceedings of an American Fisheries Society Symposium special symposium on aquaculture in the 21st century, 22 August 2001, Phoenix, Arizona. (pp. 307-338). Bethesda, MD: American Fisheries Society. American Fisheries Society Symposium 46:307-338. 2005 © 2005 by the American Fisheries Society Grouper Culture JOHNW. TUCKER, JR. 1 Fish Culture and Biology Department, Indian River Institute, Inc. 316 13th Avenue, Vern Beach Florida, 32962, USA Introduction and early to mid-stage larvae cannot swim very fast or far; therefore, both mostly drift with the Groupers are classified in 14 genera of the sub­ current. Larvae of most species spend at least family Epinephelinae, which comprises at least their first few weeks drifting with the oceanic half the approximately 449 species in the family plankton. As they become juveniles, groupers Serranidae. Throughout most warm and temper­ settle to the bottom, usually in shallow water, ate marine regions, serranids are highly valued where they can find hiding places. Then, until for food, and both small and large species are several centimeters long, they hide almost con­ kept in aquariums. Maximum size ranges from stantly. Their boldness increases with size, and about 12 em total length (TL) for the western At­ they move to deeper water.but mostspecies con­ lantic Setranus species and the Pacific creolefish tinue to stay near small caves for security. Wild Pantnthias countus to more than 4 m TL (~440 kg, grouper larvae at first eat copepods and other mature at 129 cm) for the king grouper, giant small zooplankton, then larger crustaceans like grouper, groper, or brindlebass Epinephelus amphipods and mysid shrimp. Wild juveniles lanceolatus. and adults eat mainly fish, crabs, shrimp, mantis Ages (months) at which some western At­ shrimp, lobsters, and mollusks. lantic serranids reach 454 g in nature are Goliath Most groupers that have been studied will grouper E.itajarn -12, black grouperMycteropcrcn mature within 2 to 6 years (Tucker 1998). Many bonaci 17, gag grouper M. microl-epis 18, red serranids are protogynous hermaphrodites (i.e., grouper E. moria 27, and black sea bass Cenirop­ most individuals mature first as females and ristis striata, subfamily Serraninae 51. Nassau some of them become males later). Some of those groupers E. striatus reach 50 em (-2.5 kg) in 4--5 species, as a rule, change from female to male as years and Goliath groupers reach 50 cm (-2.7 kg) they grow older, while others might change only in -2 years (Bullock et aI. ] 992; Sadovy and if there is a shortage of males. In nature, Nassau Eklund 1999). Maximum reported sizes are 1'J'J groupers typically spawn in large distinct aggre­ em TL and -27 kg for Nassau groupers (Sadovy gations (hundreds to thousands of fish) with a and Eklund 1999), 152 cm for black groupers sex ratio near 1:1. Gags spawn in harems, fre­ (Crabtree and Bullock 1998), 129 em for gags quently within aggregations, with a sex ratio of­ (Collins et al. 1998), -250 ern and 320 kg for ten near 1 male:10 females. For both species, in­ Goliath groupers (Sadovy and Eklund 1999). dividual spawning events usually involve small Nassau groupers live for at least 29 years, black numbers of fish (e.g., 2-5). Small serranids often groupers 33 years, gags 21 to 22 years, red grou­ spawn in pairs without aggregating. A few of the pers 25 years, and Goliath groupers 37 years small serranids are simultaneous hermaphro­ (Crabtree and Bullock]998). dites (male and female at the same time), but self­ Juveniles and adults of some grouper spe­ fertilization seems to be rare. cies live in coastal waters and estuaries, but oth­ ers prefer the cleaner waters of offshore reefs. Historical Overview Eggs and larvae are planktonic-the single non­ adhesive eggs are buoyant at normal salinities More than 20 grouper species have been raised commercially, mostly by growing out captured I E-mail: [email protected] 307 308 ruCKER wild juveniles in the Southeast Asian region. eptesaltivelis (mature at 39 em, maximum 70 em) The Food and Agriculture Organization (2004) have become more important in the last few reported that 22,808 metric tons (mt) of grou­ years. Minor species are blaekspotted grouper pers and sea basses worth US$1l9,418,OOO were E. amblvcephnlu«, sixbar grouper E. eexfasciaius grown out in Taiwan (12,367), Indonesia (maximum 28 em), bluespotted grouper E. (7,057), Thailand (-1,442), Malaysia (1,399), trimaculatus (mature at 29 em, maximum49 em), Hong Kong (325), Philippines (115), Singapore longfin grouper E. quoymilis (mature at 24 em, (64), Korean Republic (~33), Brazil (3), and maximum 40 em), longtooth grouper E. bruneus Kuwait (-3) during 2002. Sadovy (2000, 2001) (mature at 54 em, maximum 100 em), leopard estimated that for the late 1990s, about 60 mil­ coraltrout Plectrop-omus leopardus (females ma­ lion juveniles grown out per year resulted in ture at 36 em, males at 42 em, maximum 120 23,000 mt of live table-size groupers sold in em), barred-cheek coraltrout P. ntaculnius (ma­ Southeast Asia; however, at least hundreds of ture at 54 ern, maximum 100 em), squaretail millions of wild grouper juveniles were caught eoraltrout P. areouiius (mature at 41 em, maxi­ and sold each year, so mortality from capture mum 73 ern), honeycomb grouper E. merra (ma­ and transportation had to be very high and ture at 19 em, maximum 31 em), camouflage wastefuL Despite improvements in recent grouper E. polyphekndioJ1 (mature at 58 em, years, until 2000/ only 20/000-80/000 juveniles maximum 109 em), and greasy grouper E. were produced annually by individual hatch­ unroina (mature at 61 em, maximum 107 em). eries in the region, not counting those in Tai­ Some reports on greasy groupers (actually rare wan or Japan (Sadovy 2000, 2001). About two­ in Southeast Asia) have been based on misi­ thirds of the groupers grown out in Taiwan dentification of orangespotted or Malabar were from hatcheries. During the 1990s, typi­ groupers; unless that has been confirmed for cal annual hatchery production of groupers (1­ references in this chapter, the name greasy 3 em) in Taiwan was about 20 million, mostly grouper is still used. For farming in the south­ orangespotted E. coioides and Malabar groupers eastern United States and Caribbean region, E. ntalabaricus. In 1998, about half of the grou­ Nassau groupers (Figure I), gags, black grou­ pers farmed there had been raised from wild pers, and Goliath groupers seem to have good juveniles (Cesar et al. 2000). In 2000, Taiwan­ potential. Dusky E. ntnrginatus and white grou­ ese hatcheries produced 300,000 brown­ pers E. aenaeus have been investigated in the marbled groupers and 2 million king groupers Med i terranean. (Chan 2001). King grouper culture has just Wild groupers tend to be very easy to been developed in the last several years; 5,000 catch, especially species that form large aggre­ 7-cm juveniles were produced in 1996 and gations for spawning like the Nassau grouper 70,000 (-2% survival) in 1998 (Su 2002). (Dahlgren 1999). This grouper historically was The main farmed Asian species (Sadovy the most important through most of the Carib- 2001; total lengths mostly from Lau and Li 2000) have been orangespotted or estuary grouper (mature at 49 em, maximum ]20 cm) and Malabar grouper (mature at 45 em, maxi­ mum 234 em). Other major species are dusky­ tail grouper E. bleekeri (mature at 42 em, maxi­ mum 76 em), redspotted or Hong Kong grou­ per E. akaara (mature at 30 em, maximum 5] em), yellow grouper E. atocara (mature at 34 em, maximum 60 em), squaretail grouper E. areolatus (mature at 23 em, maximum 47 em), and king grouper. Because of increased hatch­ ery production, brownmarbled grouper E. [uscoguiiaius (mature at 50 em, maximum 120 em), kelp grouper E. ntoara (maximum 60 em), Figure 1.-Nassau grouper Epinephclus striatus at and polka-dot or humpback grouper Croniil- Grand Cayman. (by John Tucker) GROUPER CULTURE 309 bean islands and coastal reefs, but has been of such catches will be. If heavy losses natu­ overfished to commercial extinction in many rally occur after the collected stage, then pro­ areas. Both commercial and recreational har­ tecting a number of the fish on farms actually vest now are prohibited in the United States. could increase the total numbers available for The gag and red grouper, because of their harvest. At least, if collection of maderate num­ abundance and availability to the fishery, are bers is small compared to those lost to natural economically the most important species in the mortality, significant losses of wild stocks United States. They and many other grouper would not result. Therefore, traditional grou­ species throughout the world have been over­ per farming (i.e., wild groupers grown in ponds fished, leading to reduced numbers and re­ or cages) in Asia has been encouraged by some duced average size (Beets and Friedlander environmental organizations. But at the same 1998; Huntsman et al, 1999; Chiappone et al. time, grouper hatchery tec1mology needs to be 2000; Coleman et al. 2000; Morris et al. 2000). perfected because the wild supply does flue­ One possible effect is an unbalanced sex ratio tua te and there is no guarantee thatit will con­ in protogynous species. If the males are larger, tinue indefinitely.