Bluefin tuna eggs from the broodstock cages of the EU Transdott project are being collected off the south east coast of Malta, and flown to Europe for rearing trials.
Eggs are being sent from Malta by Malta Aquaculture Research Centre (MAR) and Malta Fish Farming (MFF) with assistance of members from IOLR/NCM (Israel) and the University of the Düsseldorf (Germany).
MAR has also recently reached an agreement for collaboration with Wan-Kyu Park from the Korea Marine Fish Hatchery Association who is in Malta collecting eggs from tuna cages anchored off the north east coast, through AJD Tuna.
Malta has shipped approximately 1.2 million eggs to supply an ARDAG (SME hatchery) and IOLR-NCM research facility based in the Eilat, Israel through Lufthansa air-freight. Further transportation has also been initiated to the premises of Futuna Blue Espaòa in their purpose-built land-based facilities for larval rearing and fingerling production research at El Puerto de Santa Maria near Cadiz, Spain.
Fertilization rates have been very good and in previous years hatching rates have approached over 90 percent. MAR's Robert Vassallo-Agius said that this was the beginning of the season where temperatures have just reached 22 deg C. They anticipate much high spawning rates within the next weeks where up to 100 million eggs per day can be collected.
Tuna eggs normally require about 33 hours from spawning to hatching and eggs are cooled to 22 deg C to retard hatching until they have arrived at their destination. The temperature regimes are recorded by data loggers in each shipment per destination to assist in quality control.
Similar operations are being carried out in other national programs at the facilities of IEO in Mazarron, Murcia Spain. The aim of TRANSDOTT to translate research results into commercial operations will take another step forward in the production of viable fingerlings we hope in the weeks to come. The notion of eggs on demand is now becoming a viable alternative for the industry. A new commercial entity TunaTech is to be launched in the near future to provide custom services to the developing sustainable aquaculture of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna and have already supplied GnRHa implant carrier technology to USA investors in Kali Tuna in Croatia and a number of other European Aquaculture centers.