Mr Costica Draghiceanu, farm manager at the Baltic Marine Group’s carp farm in Comana.
The carp farming industry in Romania has been going through a minor revolution. As feeds, technology, and management have improved, and ponds have become smaller, yields have risen from one tonne per hectare two decades ago to three tonnes per ha today.
The Baltic Marine Group, a Romanian company, has a traditional carp farming facility in Comana a little south of Bucharest. Although the farm was established in 1982 the company has owned it for the last 10 years. The farm consists of 28 ponds most of them three hectares in size, but with several smaller ones that are used for reproduction. The farm produces predominantly common carp (Cyprinus carpio) as well as a small volume of European catfish (Silurus glanis).
Extruded feeds, careful husbandry gives high growth rates
The farm is completely integrated meaning that it maintains a broodstock for the production of eggs and milt. The breeding process is managed to optimise the production. The ponds are treated with manure to generate the production of zooplankton and the ponds are filled the ponds with 60-70 cm of water. The male and female broodstock are introduced into the ponds, when the temperature is right and there is enough zooplankton in the water for the larvae to feed on. Ideally the water temperature should be 18 degrees, a condition that is most likely between the end of April and the first week of May. After spawning and fertilisation the eggs hatch and the larvae live initially on the yolk sac. They are then given artificial feed with a high protein content, and by the time they are 20 days old the larvae weigh 1 g. The larvae are moved to prepared ponds at a density of 30,000 individuals per hectare. For the first 10 days they live off the zooplankton in the pond, but then they are shifted to a diet of extruded feed. In the first year the fish grow from 1 to 200 g and in the second year from 200 to 2,000 g.
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Comana Farm Manager: Mr Costica Draghiceanu | Species: Common carp (Cyprinus carpio), European catfish (Silurus glanis) Product: Live fish around 2 kg for market, 200 g fish for stocking Ponds: 28 Markets: Hypermarkets, cash and carry, fishmongers |
Both 200 g (one-summer-old fish) and the 2 kg (two-summer-old fish) are sold live – the former for on-growing and the latter to hypermarkets such as Auchan. Consumers will often take the fish home to prepare it, but increasingly supermarkets also offer to slaughter, gut, and fillet or portion the fish. The company also supplies cash and carry wholesalers like Selgros that portion the fish for the food service industry. Fishmongers are another customer group that typically buys the fish during festival periods, which are at regular intervals throughout the year.