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Reared In Brackish Water, And Worth Its Salt!

Farmer's Weekly

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Farmer's Weekly 9 June 2017

Brackish water can be put to good use in the cultivation of tilapia. Despite being primarily a freshwater species, tilapia are salt-tolerant and actually thrive in saline conditions.

- Nicholas James

Reared In Brackish Water, And Worth Its Salt!

Brackish water is unsuitable for irrigation, drinking or stock watering. So could such water be used for aquaculture? With tilapia, the answer is undoubtedly yes.

All species of tilapia are euryhaline (salt-tolerant) and it is well known that when rivers flood, Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) may enter the sea and pass into other estuaries along the coast, increasing the range of this species.

The Oreochromis genus, which includes Mozambique and Nile tilapia, can tolerate salinity of up to 20 parts of salt for every 1 000 parts of water (that is, 20 ppt), with a few days’ acclimation. Unlike Nile tilapia, Mozambique tilapia have been recorded living at salinity levels even higher than that of seawater, which averages 34 ppt.

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