Status of breeding and larval rearing of groupers

Attempts to breed groupers in captivity started about four decades ago. Ukawa et al. (1966) described the successful fertilization and embryonic development of the red grouper Epinephelus akaara. Fueled by the high market value of live groupers and the inconsistent supply of juveniles from the wild, research on broodstock development and seed production of grouper has been intensified since the1980s. Natural or induced spawning in groupers was reported in Epinephelus tauvina (Chen et al. 1977, Hussain and Higuchi, 1980), E. malabaricus (Ruangpanit et al. 1986), E. salmoides (Kungvankij et al. 1986), E. fuscoguttatus (Lim et al. 1990), E. suillus (=E. coioides) (Toledo et al. 1993), E. polyphekadion (Sugama, pers. com), and Cromileptes altivelis (Sugama and Ikenoue 1999). Despite these developments, hatchery production of groupers remains unreliable. This paper reviews the status of breeding and larval rearing of groupers. Much of the information presented derives from the research and development studies on E. coioides at the Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center.