Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) is a method that may benefit fish fa

Question

Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) is a method that may benefit fish farmers by providing additional sellable products and maintaining a healthy area for fish farming. Imagine that you have the ability to establish an aquaculture set up. Create an IMTA using species you learned about in the textbook, videos, or through research. How do the different species complement each other, and what is the role each plays in the environment? Why did you choose these species? How does each provide a financial benefit to your operation; will they be sold for food or other products?

Explanation / Answer

ANS:

In the 20th century the aquaculture moved on to monoculture, focusing primarily on the needs of one single species.

A new trend to select species that are most profitable to culture.

In most aquaculture areas a huge amount of wastes are producing (that is fish excretion and unconsumed feed). These wastes are spoiling the environment of water and ecosystem which present in the aquaculture areas. The deteriorated ecosystem promote high growth of harmful algal blooms and microorganisms, it causes diseases to aquatic fishes and it finally leads to profit or economy loss.

For eliminating this negative effects on aquaculture co-culture technique is implemented. This new method is named as IMTA (Integrated multi-tropic aquaculture)

The modern technique IMTA mainly focused on recycling the wastes as a food resource by introducing other species, which contains different food habits at various tropical levels.

Ex: Dissolved food materials are mostly absorbed by sea weeds and the deposit feeders and suspension feeders can absorb organic wastes.

After using this IMTA technique the ecosystem of the aquaculture areas is highly balanced by co-cultivated species.

The waste is minimized, so the most of the environment is free from microbes and the fishes and other cultivated species are present in healthy manner, it gives high yields and profits to farmers.

Case Study:

In Japan an experimental model of IMTA is conducted. In this experiment three species are introduced in a aquatic area, they are Red sea bream (Pagrus major) is cultivated with a sea weed (Lamininaria japonica) and sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus).

The final results of this experiment shows positive waste material cycling among the co-cultivated species and the ecosystem is also present in good condition. Good healthy fish is good for health because it is free from diseases and microbes.

So IMTA model is experimentally proved it is financially benefits and to they be sold for food or other products.

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