Culture of Nile tilapia and African catfish in the province of Ouargla (Algeria)

Photo credit: Naim Belakri (Algeria)

Review:  Naim Belakri and Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the website)

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The inserted picture belongs to a fish farm located in Ouargla Province in the southeast of Algeria where the culture of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) takes place.

Nile tilapia stocks were imported from Egypt, while red tilapia hybrid has been produced locally. The African catfish has been obtained from local resources.

Groundwater from wells is the only water source of to the farm. In the Ouargla province, ground water is characterized by its freshness and abundance.

The climate in Ouargla Province is desert and dry implying the scarcity of rainfall, in addition to wide thermal ranges whether on a daily or quarterly basis; with high summer temperatures that could exceed 40 degrees C, declining sharply in winter, especially at night where temperature reaches its lowest to about zero Celsius or even below that.  Based on that, the growing season on the farm takes place mainly during warm weather especially in the summer having in consideration the sensitivity of Nile tilapia to cold climate regardless the warm well-water.

This farm adopts the rectangular shape of grow-out ponds with approximate dimensions of about 5 m × 30 m. The fish feed used in the farm is imported from France.

It may worth mentioning that farmed tilapia is acceptable to citizens while catfish which is still farmed at experimental bases is marketed as fillets and also sold cooked through a restaurant owned by the farm owner.

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