Tautog (Tautoga onitis) is a marine wrasse native to the Northwest Atlantic, which is a highly sought after food fish throughout its range and commands a premium on both the processed and live fish markets. Its life-history characteristics render it vulnerable to overfishing as it exhibits strong site fidelity, low daily movement rates, and seasonal migration patterns and therefore over the last 30 years, commercial landings have significantly decreased. Due to current low availability, high consumer demand, strong price and a proven market for the product, tautog has been identified as a candidate for marine aquaculture. A year-round supply of high-quality, market-size fish would boost regional economies, and could reduce pressure on wild stocks. The current work included objectives to evaluate and optimize broodstock conditioning, spawning, larval and juvenile early life stage culture techniques. There was an evaluation of egg quality and quantity, when broodstock were either naturally ripened or overwintered and conditioned in recirculating systems. Spawn quality was evaluated, as well as larval success and fertilization after spawns under diverse conditioning protocols. Larval tank conditions, larval stocking densities, prey density and prey quality (enrichment) were also assessed as these factors relate to growth and survival. Finally, larval feed quality, density of transitioning larvae, and optimization of juvenile tautog growing conditions were investigated; including optimal thermal range, testing of various substrates and stocking densities of juvenile fish.
Over two years, multiple cohorts of broodstock were collected and held at the NOAA Sandy Hook Laboratory. Spawning success from both naturally and laboratory-conditioned fish led to larval assessments in which it was determined that tank volume and stocking density was positively correlated to survival. In both years at larval culture temperature from 10.6-26.0˚C warmer conditions led to shorter embryonic duration (2 vs 6 days) and faster growth rates (6 vs 10 mm TL at 35 dph), though there was a lack of correlation between temperature and survival success. Continued research and analysis will yield greater insights into optimal culture conditions for tautog, to enable a transition to commercial viability for this important food fish.