Collaborative project: Testing technological approaches to minimize cannibalism losses in the rearing of pikeperch fry (MINIKANZA) – Subprojekt B (MINIKANZA)

Its tasty and boneless meat has always made the pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) a popular food fish. The species is considered a new and promising candidate for aquaculture throughout Europe. Compared to many other commercial fish species, the pikeperch is a demanding aquaculture candidate. Although controlled egg production is relatively unproblematic, despite previous attempts to increase efficiency, the cannibalism that is particularly pronounced between day 20 and day 60 after hatching still leads to an unsatisfactory output of young fish adapted to dry feed. Applying the intensive rearing methods currently used, only survival rates of less than 10% to fingerling size can be achieved under normal practical conditions when producing juvenile pikeperch. The otherwise promising pikeperch production in closed warm water circulation systems is significantly slowed down by this. The overall aim of the project is the technological further development of methods for intensive rearing of pike-perch fry in warm water hatcheries.