Black Sea Bass Aquaculture

    Black sea bass, Centropristis striata, are found from Cape Ann, Maine to Cape Canaveral, Florida.  There is a small population of black sea bass found in Long Island Sound, with  greater numbers occurring in the western end of the sound.  Black sea bass are associated with pilings, wharves, wrecks, reefs and oyster beds.  They are managed under the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan  (Amendment 9), 1996. 

     In 1997, David Nelson began working with black sea bass at the Milford laboratory.  That same year, black sea bass were spawned naturally at the Milford laboratory.  This was the first time this species had been successfully spawned in vitro  without the use of hormone injections (IU human chorionic gonadotropin or luteinizing hormone releasing hormone analog).  In the spring of 1998 the fish were again spawned naturally.  In both years, hatch of the embryos was low and survival was poor. 

     From 1999 to 2001 adult female black sea bass had to be injected with luteinizing hormone releasing hormone analog.  Hatch of embryos and survival of larvae was poor. In May of 2002, black  sea bass were spawned naturally at the Milford laboratory by David Nelson and Dean Perry.  Adult fish were conditioned by photothermal manipulation, which involved letting the seawater temperature to naturally decrease to 10°C and turning the lights off above the tanks that held the fish.  The seawater temperature was maintained at 10ºC by mixing ambient seawater with heated seawater. This caused the fish to go into a torpid state.  When ambient temperature reached 10º C, the heated seawater was turned off and lights above the tanks turned on.  The day/night cycle was initially set on a 10 h light and 14 h dark schedule.  The fish remained at this temperature and photoperiod for 1 month.  The seawater temperature was allowed to increase  naturally over eight weeks and the photoperiod was gradually increased,  until the seawater temperature was 18°C and a photoperiod of 15 h light and 9 h dark was reached.  Spawning began at this point and continued daily for 5 weeks. Eight females  produced an average of 100 mls of eggs per day with 1 ml equal to 1,000 eggs.  Aliquots of these eggs were placed into a recirculating seawater system at 32ppt salinity, 20°C, where greater than 90% of them hatched. 

    Larvae were fed a daily diet of rotifers, Brachionus plicatilis, for 2 weeks and then weaned onto brine shrimp, Artemia salina.  The fish were fed brine shrimp daily for 3 weeks, with feedings of pellet food introduced during the second week.  The black sea bass were completely weaned to a pellet food when they were 6-weeks-old.  Survival of this cohort of fish has been very good.  We estimate that we now have approximately 700-800 juvenile black sea bass that  continue to grow at a fast rate, 4.9 mm/week,  and are eating a larger size pellet food every couple of weeks.   We plan to move these fish to grow-out tanks where we will closely monitor feeding times and amounts, and growth rates.

contacts: Dave Nelson  (email) David.A.Nelson@noaa.gov      telephone (203) 882-6521

                Dean Perry   (email) Dean.Perry@noaa.gov               telephone (203) 882-6530