Culture of Groupers in Maldives

Groupers are popular food fish common in Maldivian reefs. Thanks to traditional livebait pole- and-line tuna fishery, reef fishery resources was virtually untouched in the past. The inception of tourism in early 1970s, however, changed this status quo. Reef fish varieties were in demand for the tourist resorts and soon reef fisheries became a subsistence fishery.With expansion and development of tourism industry reef fishing is now a commercial fishery activity in the Maldives.

An export segment of reef fish started in the mid mid 1990s. Groupers became a prime target for export to the Far Eastern countries, particularly to Hong Kong.

A very effective fishery for live groupers was soon developed in the Maldives where exporters effectively controlled purchase points dictated by the location of the floating cage systems. Because Maldivian fishermen are highly adept at switching fisheries many tuna fishing vessels switched from targeting tunas to catching groupers, particularly during low tuna catches. Grouper fishing became an alternative livelihood to many fishermen in the outer islands.

Assessments during 2004 showed that groupers were heavily fished. Catch rates have declined dramatically and nearly half of the catch was immature.  The fishery continues on a limited scale with collection facilities located in close to Malé (capital Island).

It was obvious if the fishery continued without strong management intervention the groupers may become "extinct" from the Maldives. Thus the motivation for culture of groupers in the Maldives was to demonstrate that young groupers or fingerlings may be cultured in floating cage systems, similar to what is being in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Unfortunately mariculture is totally new concept in the Maldives. The Marine Research Centre started the work of grouper culture as pilot project in 2005. Brown-marbled grouper Epinephelus fuscoguttatus is being cultured. The main activities of the project includes adopting available grouper culture techniques to the local conditions, producing grouper fingerlings for commercial cage culture. The project is currently at initial stages.

MRC has been successful has been made in maintaining a healthy brood stock for long period. Several successful attempts have been made at fertilizing and incubation of eggs and eventually rearing larvae.

Grouper broodstock is reared and kept in floating cages in the sea. The parent fish are fed with tuna flesh discarded from tuna processing facilities. Brown-marbled grouper spawn in the new moon period. By this time female grouper belly becomes large and soft. Male fish gives out milt (sperm) when the belly is lightly pressed. Parent fishes with these characteristics are brought to spawning tanks in the hatchery. One female and two males are put in every spawning tank

In the tank groupers spawn at night. The fertilized eggs float and the unfertilized eggs sink to the bottom of the tank. The fertilized eggs are removed with a net and put in separate tanks for incubation. The larvae that hatch from the eggs are very small. At present the project is concentrating on rearing 30-day old larvae.

For more information please contact: Senior Biologist, Hassan Shakeel

Updated: 14 Dec 2008

A poster on commercially exploited groupers in Maldives is available from MRC.

Grouper assessment report: Review of the Grouper Fishery of the Maldives with additional notes on the Faafu Atoll Fishery (2004). Download the report (1.023 MB)