I repeat…THE FISH HAVE ARRIVED!

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After much anticipation, we got the call! The cobia fingerlings had a long journey from The University of Miami’s experimental fish hatchery at RSMAS to the Cape Eleuthera Institute. We spent the day preparing the tanks for the fingerlings…scrub, rinse, soak, drain, scrub, rinse, fill! Marie and Josh took the truck to pick up the 13 boxes from the Rock Sound Airport Friday afternoon. It was like Christmas morning when the truck finally pulled up. We put the bags in the tank to acclimate the cobia to their new home. After, we opened each bag and carefully let them free! The fingerlings will be used in an upcoming feed trial. The new food is specifically designed for the cobia species and it has a lower percentage of fish meal than the typical generic aquaculture feed. We will study the growth rates of the fingerlings for a month and after that time we will transfer the cobia into a nursery net, housed in the off-shore cage, with it’s new shark resistant netting, and will be monitored daily. This is the first time fish will be stocked in an offshore cage with shark resistant netting.