STUDIES ON REARING OF RED TILAPIA FRY

Abstract

The practice of fish farming is very old, a base relief was found on an ancient Egyptian tomb showed Tilapia being fished out of an artificial pond, presumably a drainable one. This base relief, is an evidence that Fish farming was already practiced in Egypt about 2500 BC. The Egyptian fisheries can be grouped into three brood groups including drain, lake and inland fisheries, with a water area of about 6 million Feddans. However, the annual rate of Fish consumption per capita (4 kg) in Egypt is comparatively low when compared with that of Japan (35 kg) Malaysia (25.5 kg) Ceylon (20.3 kg and Kuwait (18.4 kg) (FAO, 1981).

However, the annual catch of fish production in Egypt is about

150 thousand tons and the amount of imported fish reached 100 thousand tons (FAO, 1985). The low productivity of Egyptian fisheries could be attributed to the construction of the high Dam, that affected the north catch machine by the loss of sardine and shrimp fisheries, and also the Nile catch as well as the military conditions that prevailed during the period of 1967-1973.

Besides, the area of lakes had been subjected to a considerable shrinkage as a result of land reclamation programs for increasing plant and crop production. A great attention is now being given to fish farming under controlled conditions specially for land fisheries in Egypt.