The Fish Farming Centre was visited by the author and Project Operations Officer each day from Sunday 17 February - Wednesday 20 February 1985, and again for final meetings on Sunday 24 February. There were no formal interviews with the staff, but discussions were held with all individuals who had responsibilities for the operation of the facilities, i.e., the national staff of co-manager, biologist, site biotechnicians, and the ex-patriate project manager and aquaculture expert. The site was also inventoried for its major components.
The following complement of staff is presently manning the project:
| National Staff | |
| Co-Manager: | Salem Al-Thobaity |
| Biologist: | Feisal Bukhari |
| Bio-technician: | Magdi Elbawab |
| Property Officer: | Adel Kamal Badawi |
| General Staff: | Foreman, 6 Labourers, 3 Watchmen |
| Expatriates | |
| Project Manager: | Kenneth O. Allen |
| Aquaculture Expert: | Maximo Arada |
The 9 ha site, about 40 km north of Jeddah, is now entirely walled, but open along the beach for its full width. A small fishing community is immediately north of the site, and recreational boats and activities are encroaching to the south now that the large royal summerhouse it being demolished.
According to the specifications of the Master Plan for the development of the site, the four residences and the office laboratory building are nearing completion towards the rear of the site. There are no roads yet but access is possible everywhere. All the experimental development and the trailerhomes for the staff are located in the lower southwest corner.
The largest trailer acts as a main office for the managers and all the technical staff. It has a small kitchenette and toilet. All technical books and information are kept there, and all files. Adjacent to this trailer are two others accommodating the expatriate staff.
Nearby, two other trailers accommodate the general staff. Between the two, under a protected roof, is an open-ended storage area. All unused nets are cleaned and stowed there, together with other cage materials. The artificial feed is also safely stored in large plastic bins, and a small feed mill is available but not in use as the prepared feed is purchased as required from a nearby poultry farm. The area is clean and well maintained.
The only land-based experimental area is a covered space housing twelve elevated tanks on metal frames. These identical tanks are about l m3 volume, and are supplied with both salt and freshwater as required. The seawater is pumped in over the beach by a double pump system (one gasoline, one electric) and in a single 2–3 in line. The freshwater is trucked in daily and stored in four large containers (4 m3 each) on the ground which feed into a header tank. The main discharge pipe, which collects the exhaust from each tank, spills into a crude treatment unit before discharging freely over the beach.
Nearby are two fibreglass 10 m3 circular tanks raised above a temporary sand-covered slab. They are being prepared for use. Scattered about the site are six 16 m3 fibreglass raceways, six more 10 m3 circular tanks, and eight 1.5 m3 circular tanks. All these tanks have been on site since April 1984 but nothing has been done with them. The reason given is that assembly is awaiting inclusion in the main construction of the Master Plan, and that temporary construction (on an elaborate concrete base) is too costly (SR 70 000).
Offshore, in the lagoon between the beach and the outer reef, are anchored 15 sea cages of about 10 m3 experimental volume. The cages are assembled on site using painted oil-drum containers as floats, and metal pipework frames. Each cage has a narrow two plank walkway. The cages are roped to home-made concrete anchors, which are adequate for the lagoon which has no wave action of any consequence. The cages are randomly spread over a large area of the lagoon. The cages are serviced from a number of small work boats owned by the project.
(i) Fry production. Only fry of Tilapia spirulus are being produced by the project. This is being achieved in the 12 small units under the covered enclosure, with the support of two ‘irrigation’ tanks (two tanks at the rear of the site built for holding water to be used for irrigating the plants), and two ‘ponds’ constructed in the middle of the site. Breeding groups of adults are contained in the two irrigation tanks, the two ponds, and in three of the tanks in the covered area.
Since the stocking of these units with adults (October 1984 was the most recent occasion), the total monthly fry production has been:
| November | 1984 - | 2 600 | |
| December | 1984 - | 4 000 | |
| January | 1985 - | 11 260 | |
| February | 1985 - | 7 100 | (as at 18 February). |
No fry are being produced by the adults in the seawater tanks in the covered enclosure. The entire yield is being produced in the freshwater units, the ponds and the irrigation tanks.
Average growth periods of the fry are up to 2 g in weight in 3–4 weeks and up to 5 g in 8–10 weeks. The normal production cycle is therefore about three months to produce juveniles fully acclimated to saltwater and ready for grow-out, and monthly yields of 12 000–15 000 fry can be anticipated as the adults become bigger and older. At present, only about 112 adults are being used productively, consisting of 80 females and 32 males.
The present stocking of the 12 small circular tanks in the covered area at 19 February 1985, is as follows:
(Unfortunately, about 3 600 juveniles were subject to a fish kill on 18/19 February due either to a too fast acclimation exposure or loss of waterflow due to the exceptional low tide that day. See notes later.)
(ii) Grow-out in sea-cages. Both juveniles of Tilapia spilurus from the hatchery system on site and of Siganus rivulatus collected from the wild resources are used in the grow-out operations in the sea-cages. The following ‘experiments’ are currently in progress.
Units 1–6. Polyculture trial, using three cages with 500 siganids and 600, 800 and 1 000 Tilapia began on 23 August 1984. The other three cages have 500 Tilapia and 600, 800 and 1 000 siganids. After six months, the siganids have grown from 5.9 to 115.5 g with about 60% loss; and the Tilapia from 2.5 to 98.2 g with only 2% loss.
Units 7–12. Monoculture trial, using Tilapia. The first three cages stocked in September 1984 at 1 500, 2 000 and 2 500 have grown from 18.7 to 179.6 g. The other set stocked in November have grown from 17.2 to 72 g. Feeding rates are about 8.5% body weight, and losses are minimal.
Units 13–15. Polyculture trial, using three cages with 400 siganids and 1 100, 1 600 and 2 100 Tilapia stocked on 12 November 1984. The siganids have grown from 48.6 to 113.7 g, and the Tilapia from 5 to 54 g. About 20% of the siganids are lost, and few Tilapia.
Records are also on file for similar experiments carried out between July 1983 and February 1984, and growth of siganids in sea cages has been reported and published in AQUACULTURE, 40 (1984) 273–5.
The market size of both these fish is about 200–250 g, although individuals can appear on the market from about 150 g upwards. The sea-cages are serviced daily, and the fish fed twice each day. The cages require regular cleaning and maintenance.
An experimental sea penstock (enclosure), of about 6 × 4 m in dimension, is also located nearshore and contains 160 Tilapia and 80 siganids, stocked on 7 January. No other data are available on growth of these fish yet. Next to the penstock are lines of sunken posts awaiting delivery of nets to form three large penstocks of 1/4 (1) and 1/8 (2) ha.
(iii) Monitoring. Regular simple monitoring of conditions in the sea and in the shore-based tanks has been maintained. Measurements are made with Horiba Kit Model U-7 digital recorder (for temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen, and a salinometer (refractometer). Unfortunately, the salinometer (and the spare) are now both broken, and the DO probe on the recorder does not work. Routine data have therefore been missed, beginning a few weeks ago.
Sea temperature and tidal data (height) are also recorded twice each day.
All records are kept in the main office, but in the care of the individual biologist responsible for the project activity rather than in a central data bank.
The lack of a central laboratory facility also detracts from the common use of the few instruments available to the project. These again are under the care of individuals.
From the point of view of results achieved in the four years of the project, there is little which indicates more than minimal effort and initiative on the part of the staff. This lack of leadership and drive, is the main constraint of the project. Technically, the staff has produced two Short Communications and had them published in a technical journal, but there is nothing which can be construed as scientific experimentation or demonstrated production. The existing grow-out trials are planned without any forethought and replication, and there is no experiment which appears to be designed on the strength of what has been observed or learnt in the previous year. The fault for this must lie plainly with the expatriate staff who have failed to set up or at least advise the national staff on proper experimentation procedures and controls. None of the experiments completed or in progress is replicated, the numbers of individuals used in the trials have no purpose or consistency (but appear to use any resources available), and there is no effort to analyse any data beyond the production of simple growth curves. In summary, the only results of all the work in the cages for some three years are general unsubstantiated observations, namely, both species (Tilapia and Siganus) grow well together in sea cages, and can attain market size in about 5–6 months if stocked as acclimated juveniles. They appear to grow faster in cages of 10 m3 compared with growth in larger units, and consume pelleted feed at a rate of 8–15% body weight per day for acceptable growth. The feed, provided by a local feed mill under direction for composition, is adequate. Both tolerate the environmental conditions of high salinity (46 ppt) and temperature (32°C). Mortality is likely to be higher with siganids than with Tilapia and it appears that the Siganids are more susceptible to poor environmental conditions in the cages when the biofouling increases.
Similarly, there are few statistical data for the fry production of Tilapia to indicate that a reliable and repeatable technique has been developed and is now being applied. Observed results once more suggest that good fry production of 12 000–15 000/month is possible from a broodstock population of about 80 females and 40 males. Although T. spilurus appears to be an excellent species for grow-out and culture in the high saline waters of the Red Sea, they do not reproduce in saltwater.
The loss of two populations of young juveniles during the mission exposed some fundamental difficulties between expatriates and nationals. It appears that the expatriates have ‘washed their hands’ of any day-to-day direction of activities although admitting they ‘know what is wrong and how to do it properly’. However, there is nothing obvious in the project records which shows that there are simple manuals or procedural instructions on how to perform such routine tasks as acclimation of the fry.
Other points of concern are the failure of the staff to have tried to do anything at all with the raceways and circular tanks which have been on the site for over a year; the 22 empty file boxes which make up the proposed ‘extension files’ but which are now to be filled within the last few days of the Project Manager's departure; the lack of any even primitive laboratory space for such routine work as water quality or pathological diagnosis; the broken equipment for monitoring important data; the non-use of the good collection of library books, which are kept under lock and key, and have hardly, if ever, been opened (but on the other hand there is a good collection of journals, trade magazines and papers which are distributed and read avidly by the national staff); the lack of effort to visit the nearby Marine Science Centre which is presently constructing an aquaculture unit and using subterranean seawater wells.
While the demands of this project may have been exceptionally high, because of the sudden change in location of the site at the start of the project and the fact that it was being developed from nothing, there is strong evidence of the lack of any consolidation of the project once it was underway and the lack of leadership on the part of the expatriates. The result has been the loss of confidence in the executing agency by the nationals.
There is obvious interest on the part of the national staff (and apparently through them the Ministry) to establish aquaculture in the country and therefore to keep the project going.
As an interim action plan, it is recommended that the staff immediately constructs a small demonstration facility for Tilapia production using the raceways and circular tank units now available. A layout of a typical site has been prepared and left with the staff. A goal of construction completion was set for 30 April, with a production target of 0.5 t/month by the end of 1985. It has been stressed that the construction must be functional rather than aesthetic, with the tanks being laid out neatly on a sand platform for support and open excavated drainage channels. It is important that this proposal is carried through to establish interest and re-initiate some momentum for the staff and the project.
Second, it is vital that a good leader is recruited immediately as Project Manager. He should be a senior person, with a broad exposure to aquaculture and marine fish culture. He should be a person whom all the staff would respect for his knowledge and experience in the field. His nationality is also important, being necessary to avoid those nationalities which have other associations within the country.
As an interim measure, as a certain amount of engineering skill is now required for a few weeks, the project should co-opt the help of the engineer from the other fisheries project in Jeddah (RAB/84/023), namely John Walker. This will be especially important as the Co-Manager is due to go on a prolonged study tour in March, the Project Manager is leaving, and the aquaculture expert is due to take annual leave. This will be a good opportunity for the remaining national staff to lead the initiatives, but with help available if necessary.
It is recommended that greater cooperation is established between the project staff and that of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, who are doing much the same work, and the local Marine Science Centre in Jeddah, who are constructing an aquaculture unit of some proportion.
A detailed work plan for the period March 1985 to July 1986 follows in Section 4, and a summarized timetable in Section 4.7.
