Photos credit: Sherif Sadek (Egypt)
Review: Sherif Sadek and Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the website)
The farm is located near Port-Said whereas this Exploratory testing of the culture of Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) in the ponds of the brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus). This is the first time to practice such polyculture system in Egypt bearing in mind that the brown shrimp is a new comer to Egyptian waters.
The fry of soles as well as the brown shrimp post larvae were collected from nature on 08 March, 2017. Upon collection and stocking, the average weight of sole was 0.3 gm/fish. Based on the subsequent sampling after 57 days of culture (May 04), the average weight of soles was 8 gm/fish.
Realizing the feeding habits and so the competition between soles and shrimp as both are benthic feeders, the stocking rate of sole being 0.5 fish/m2 is considered very low.
The feeding in this polyculture system is done using shrimp feed (34% CP). In fact, the protein content of the feed seems low for soles, but the growth rate is so far satisfactory. The outcome of the exploratory testing would be known once harvesting takes place.
