Kingfish Farm

A venture between Moana Pacific fisheries and Niwa is planning to farm Kingfish near Whangarei. A $2.5 million aquaculture centre has been established at Bream Bay and one of its tasks will be to research the possibility of farming the gamefish in captivity. Initially the centre will be used to breed millions of snapper, eels, oysters and mussels.

The farming of kingfish is nothing new. Japan produces 140,000 tones of farmed kingfish a year. The farm will use adapted Japanese technology but more specific knowledge is required on native species particularly in its early stages of development.

Currently 20 wild kingfish have been used as breeding stock at Moana’s Pah farm hatchery on Kawau Island. Growth rates have been encouraging with fish reaching 3kg in just 12 months. However survival rates have been low of 147,000 eggs only 36 were still alive after 40 days and all of those had some type of jaw deformity.

Once operating the fish will be held in huge salt water tanks the largest which holds up to 90,000 litres of water. The filtering process which utilises pumps from the Marsden point power station can process 150,000 litres of water an hour. The site also hopes to trial breeding rock lobster, groper and sea horses.