Test the aquaculture suitability of fish species and offer them to the private sector, if suitable

These tests include sustainable rearing, determination of stress and disease sensitivity of fish under fish culture conditions, and development of efficient husbandry conditions for optimal growth.

At the moment we are working on a project for the breeding of eel rut in cooperation with Hofer KG. Due to the firm, tasty meat, which is almost free of bones, it is aspired to produce the eel rod as a food fish.

Freshly hatched eel rut have a size of only 3 mm and must be fed with live food in their first stages of life. We use zooplankton for this purpose. If the fish are to be raised as food fish for aquaculture, they must be switched to an industrially produced mixed feed from a size of about 50 mm. This switch from live to dry feed is a critical developmental step for eel ruts, as the digestive system has to adapt to the new feed.
When the eel ruts are switched to commercially available dry feed, they strictly refuse to eat and starve to death. The conversion procedure we have developed is based on giving dry feed mixed with NaCl. The addition of NaCl, i.e. sour taste, induces the eel ruts to eat the dry feed. The salt feed is given for about 2 weeks, then the salt concentration is reduced so that the fish learn to eat commercially available dry feed after about 4 to 6 weeks. This method is an important step to realize the rearing of the eel rut as a food fish.