With the depletion of wild fish stocks by factors such as overfishing, habitat degradation, pollution and red tides, the pressures and incentives for commercial farming of marine food and aqaurium fish have increased dramatically. Concurrent with that trend has been an increase in the experimental use of live marine fish in various basic and applied sciences (e.g. in developmental, ecologcial and taxicological research).
Marine Fish Culture by John W. Tucker, Jr., Ph.D., Head of the Fish Culture Department at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, is the first comprehensive reference and textbook on this subject and provides information on more than 870 species in 129 families. The book is the product of the author's 27 years of research and teaching in fish culture and biology. approximately 12,000 references through June 1998 were screened in writing this work, and more than 4,000 are included in the text.
Marine Fish Culture covers all the major topics necessary for raising marine fish, including overviews of commercial production statistics, water sources, water treatment, rearing units, energetics, health and handling, detailed reviews of fish characteristics relative to rearing, the rearing environment, reproduction, nutrition of larvae and nutrition of juveniles and adults. This book also includes reviews of current rearing knowledge for bait food and ornamental marine fish, by family.