Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the website)
Hot smoked eels in Holland are popular and are eaten as a delicacy and so eel smoking is a big business whether in processing or trade. The photos here are taken in a smoking operation in Holland.
Eels of about 350 – 700 g are preferred for hot smoking. Much smaller eels are not commercially accepted while much heavier eels require longer brining time. Typically, clean eels are immersed in 80° brine for 10 minutes prepared by dissolving 275-g salt per liter of water.
Brined eels are impaled on a metal shaft to keep them straight throughout the smoking. Typically, the smoker burns willow or other popular wood. The smoking lasts about two and half hours. In some smoking operations,gradual increase in temperature is done as follows: 1 hour at 35°C, 30 min at 49°C and finally for 1 hour at 77°C. This heating protocol permits reasonably uniform drying throughout the thickness of the fish. Often, a 100 kg of fresh, whole eels yield about 60 kg of hot-smoked eels.
Video credit: Ahmed Shaheen (Egypt)
Description: Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of channel and website)
This video was filmed in a shrimp farm located along Port Said-Damietta road (Egypt)
The video shows the partial harvest of the Indian white shrimp (Penaeus indicus). Some farmers adopt the partial harvest mainly for marketing purpose. In this system, quantities of shrimp of target size are frequently harvested according to market demands. This system is preferred in relatively large ponds in which shrimp of the required size are trapped in the circular netting facility to be scoped as shown in the video. The target size depends on the mesh size of the nettings. The partial harvest also helps in the cash flow of the farm.
Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the site and video channel)
This video was taken during May, 2014 in Damietta region (Egypt)
The culture of silver carp, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix in cages in River Nile, Egypt is a 3-year old practice. Tilapia used to be the principal species cultured in cages in River Nile. However, the rapid expansion of cages coped with the growing environmental concerns led to the banning of tilapia cages in River Nile and this was in the mid-2000s.
Cage farmers in their attempt to comply with the environmental regulations shifted to the farming of silver carp in cages. This shift is based on the feeding habits of silver carp as plankton feeder and hence no artificial feed is used. The farm gate price is low due to the intramuscular bones that negatively affect the consumer acceptance. However, the low production costs of silver carp in such non-fed system encouraged the cage culture of silver carp especially cages were already there.
The stocking rate in the current practice is 3000-4000 piece/cage of 10 m length x10 m width x5 m depth. After about 18-month growing season, cages are harvested whereas average weight reaches about 1.5 kg/piece. A part of harvested silver carp is marketed locally while quantities of produced carp have been exported through Iraqi traders who are using road transport and refrigerated trucks.
The photos show the facilities of “Solwezi Aquaculture Research Station” which includes experimental ponds of rectangular shape. One of the photos shows experimental hapas placed in the experimental ponds. Also, one photo shows green waters as a result of fertilization. The station is located in Solwezi district, North Western Province, Zambia.
The photo shows a type of fishing boats that are used as the major craft in inland reservoirs (Kalawewa reservoir: North central province of SriLanka). The boat is made of fiber glass while the supporting part (for balancing purpose) is made of wood.
Il s’agit d’un four amélioré de genre Altona muni d’un toit et d’une porte métallique. Il dispose de beaucoup de claies superposées qui permettent de fumer une grande quantité de poissons a la fois. La condensation de la chaleur dans ce four est très élevée parce que la porte métallique en empêche les pertes. Les poissons fumes sont les bars, les dorades, les capitaines, le machoiron, l’Hétérotis, le poisson chat, la sole.
The photos show an improved method in fish smoking in Cameroon. The improvement is mainly related to the oven which is furnished by a roof and a metal door. The smoker is equipped with overlapping screens that allow smoking a large amount of fish at a time. The metal door of the furnace prevents heat losses and keeps it inside and hence improves the heat efficiency. The smoked fish shown in the photos may include bream, hog fish, catfish, Heterotis sp. and sole.
This video was filmed in a commercial shrimp hatchery in Vietnam.
The eye-stalk ablation was commercially adopted in the early 1970s as an effective means in the maturation and spawning of shrimp females.
The eye-stalk is the source of Gonadotropin Inhibiting Hormone (GIH) and hence the removal of one eye-stalk would reduce or eliminate the signals which stop gonadotropins from being produced and so trigger the ovarian development and so induce spawning. This is based on the fact that gonadotropins are essential in sexual maturation.
In order for this operation to be effective, shrimp should be ablated only when hard-shelled, or in pre-molt stage. Shrimp female undergoes eye-stalk ablation often completes its ovarian development and spawn within a period of 3-10 days.
Credit: Chantal and Jean Michel Sengue Ngoulou Megne Me Zeng (Gabon)
The people around the canoe are fishermen and transporters who are sorting the catch. The fish are sorted by species and size. Hogfish, bass, bream and sole are the most expensive and the most popular fish to people. It may be of interest to know that canoes are often given the names of the owners or the names of their families, their children, their wives …etc.
Video ownership: The World Bank Ghana Office in collaboration with World Bank-Africa Region
Video submitted by: Alain Murekambanze (Burundi)
This 11-min interesting video was filmed in 2007. Even though the video is titled “Aquaculture development in Ghana”, the focus has been placed on tilapia farming. The harvesting and grading of Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus in a commercial fish farm were covered in the video and served as a live background to the description given by the key speaker. The speaker highlighted the demand and supply for tilapia and the need for tilapia farming in Ghana. The sustainability of fish farming in Ghana has been addressed especially in regard to fish feed which is imported as the establishment of fish feed mills is probably not feasible at the moment. Fish trade has been adequately covered especially the need for credit and micro-finance systems.
