RECENT ADVANCES IN SILVER POMFRET (Pampus argenteus) CULTURE IN KUWAIT

This paper reports the recent advances in silver pomfret (Pampus argenteus) research at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), Kuwait. Since last several years KISR has been trying to develop a sustainable culture technology for this commercially important species. The average hatching rates of eggs collected from wild silver pomfret were 25.6%, 44.8%, 76.7%, and 53.5.0% for the spawning seasons 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 respectively. The average survival rates of metamorphosed fry produced were 3.7%, 5.7%, 4.4% and 3.8% for the spawning seasons 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 respectively.  In 2012, the captive silver pomfret broods in two tanks spawned a total of 62,712 and 66012 eggs but the eggs were unfertilized. In 2015, captive silver pomfret broods in three tanks spawned about 653x10³, 673x10³ and 270x10³ eggs. A total of 300 and 123 hatched larvae were produced from captive broods in 2015 and 2016 respectively but they did not survived beyond 56 days of metamorphosed stage. Recently dietary inclusion of compound feed and raw shrimp muscle was found very effective in improving the growth and survival of juveniles as well as the captive spawning of captive silver pomfret broods in 2015. The results of nutritional requirement studies showed that a dietary protein and lipid level of 49% and 16% respectively is optimum for better growth and feed utilization in silver pomfret. A dietary level of 196 mgkg^-1 of vitamin E has also been found optimal for silver pomfret fingerlings. A patent for development of vaccine against parasitic protozoan was achieved and a potential probiotics bacterium was isolated, characterized and archived.