Amon Shoko

Aquatic BioSolutions Tanzania

Over 42 million people rely on Lake Victoria as their primary source of food, employment, and clean drinking water. The lake's fisheries have produced around one million tonnes in recent years, but the lake's growing population has resulted in a lower catch rate per capita. And the lake and its catchment have been negatively impacted by a wide vari...

Seeds and feeds are among the most important inputs required for sustainable aquaculture industry development in any country worldwide. However, the value chain analysis of seeds and feeds in most developing countries including Tanzania has not been mapped, and the key actors are not identified and characterized. To address this knowledge gap, we m...

This study aims to provide a better understanding of the dynamics of the fisheries sector in Tanzania by modeling the outcomes of a certain set of possible future scenarios. Integrating optimized behaviors of the economic actors with fish production uniquely provides a platform for analyzing different shocks and estimating their relative socioecono...

This study investigated the effect of replacing soybean meal (SBM) with black soldier fly larvae meal (BSFLM) on the growth performance, feed utilization, carcass body composition, and amino ac-ids profile of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Three isonitrogenous (30% crude protein) diets containing BSFLM in varying proportions of 0% (BSFLM0),...

Abstract Insects have been proposed as potential alternative animal protein sources to replace fishmeal (FM), which is expensive and has limited availability for fish feed formulation. However, studies on the effects of replacing FM with black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae (BSF‐L) on growth performance of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticu...

Background: Researchers in the developing countries often have inadequate scientific writing skills to publish their research in international peer reviewed journals. Objectives: To improve the research-and proposal-writing skills of researchers and to evaluate the impact of this intervention. Methods: An off-the-shelf online course (AuthorAID, dev...

Background: Researchers in the developing countries often have inadequate scientific writing skills to publish their research in international peer reviewed journals. Obj ectives: To improve the research-and proposal-writing skills of researchers and to evaluate the impact of this intervention. M e th ods: An off-the-shelf online course (AuthorAID,...

Background: Researchers in the developing countries often have inadequate scientific writing skills to publish their research in international peer reviewed journals. Objectives: To improve the research-and proposal-writing skills of researchers and to evaluate the impact of this intervention. Methods: An off-the-shelf online course (AuthorAID, d...

The Eastern Africa region requires more animal protein sources to feed its growing population and combat malnutrition. Other than cattle, fish and poultry provide good sources of animal protein and yet their production is constrained by high costs of feed. The biggest barrier affecting growth of the aquaculture industry in East Africa is access to...

The development of aquaculture industry in Tanzania cannot cope with the expected substantial increase in demand for fish and fish products due to several bottlenecks including unavailability of good quality feeds and fingerlings. Fish farmers often complain about slow growth rate of the farmed fish necessitating genetic characterization. This stud...

Aquaculture practices from sub-Saharan Africa are characterised by low production, owing to improper technology. Production can be increased through integrating fish farming with other existing on-farm activities, particularly livestock husbandry. We assessed the role of fish-poultry integration on all male Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus growt...

The dwindling catch from Lake Victoria has caused an insufficient fish supply to the population of the Lake Victoria basin, Tanzania. The decrease in catch rates and demand for fish has created room for fish farming practices at both small and commercial scales in the Lake Basin. This chapter provides a result-oriented status of aquaculture researc...

Phytoplankton availability is one of the most important biotic factors affecting the successful culture of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus, Linnaeus) in semi-intensive ponds. The present study investigated phytoplankton composition, abundance and food selectivity in Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1758) reared in monoculture and p...

This study explored the yield and economic benefits of African sharptooth catfish, Clarias gariepinus, and Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus polyculture, reared in earthen ponds for 270 days integrated with Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa chinensis, farmed for 45 days to small-scale farmers in Tanzania. An integrated aquaculture–agriculture (IAA)...

The present on-farm study assessed the effect of different stocking densities on growth, production, and financial benefits of African sharptooth catfish (Clarias gariepinus) in earthen ponds for 180 days. Low stocking density (LSD), medium stocking density (MSD), and high stocking density (HSD) of 3, 6, and 9 fish m−2, respectively, were tested. C...

Unaffordability of commercial feeds to semi-intensive Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus farmers has led to reliance on supplemental feeding and fertilization for nutrition of their fish without a scientific basis. This study compared the growth, survival, condition factor and yield performance of O. niloticus fed on mixed ingredients (MI) and ric...

This study was conducted to assess the reproductive biology and early breeding behaviour of female Oreochromis niloticus reared in monoculture and polyculture with Clarias gariepinus in earthen ponds for 8 months. Results revealed no significant difference in length at first maturity (L 50) between females reared in monoculture and poly-culture sys...

Effect of initial stocking size of the predatory African sharptooth catfish (Clarias gariepinus) on recruits, growth performance, survival and yield of mixed-sex Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in concrete tank culture system Samwel Mchele Limbu • Amon Paul Shoko • Hieromin Amon Lamtane • Evantuce Dominick Shirima • Mary Alphonce Kishe-Machumu...

Prolific breeding and production of high percentage of recruits are main problems in mixed-sex Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) culture in earthen ponds. The current study assessed the efficiency of different sizes of African sharptooth catfish (Clarias gariepinus) in controlling recruitment in mixed-sex Nile tilapia cultured in tanks and its e...

On-farm fish production experiments were conducted for 240 days to investigate the effect of stocking density on growth, yield and economic benefits of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in monoculture and polyculture with African sharptooth catfish (Clarias gariepinus). Low stocking density (LSD), medium stocking density (MSD) and high stocking...

The overall performance of an aquaculture system is partly determined by its water quality parameters. Poor water quality stresses and adversely affects fish growth causing low production, profit and product quality. Diurnal dynamics of water quality parameters were investigated in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) monoculture and polyculture wi...

Starter feeds are important in the growth of African catfish Clarias gariepinus (Burchell) larvae. A study was conducted to investigate the performance of Artemia shell-free embryos, Moina micrura (Kurz) and phytoplankton as starter feed for larvae rearing of C. gariepinus. The experiment lasted 15 days in a set of nine tanks of 900-litre capacity....

Fisheries is an important food production sub-sector, providing almost 20% of the world's protein supply; however, the trend in fish production from capture fisheries has reached its limits due to overfishing. A study was conducted to evaluate the performance of two locally formulated feeds as possible replacements for an imported costly commercial...

Aquaculture has the potential to make a significant contribution to food security and income generation. Dutch private companies, knowledge institutes and ministries are involved in various aquaculture projects throughout Africa. In a number of countries belonging to the East African Community (EAC) there is currently insufficient knowledge at gove...

Except for commercial seaweed farming that employs 15,000-20,000 people, aquaculture in Tanzania is primarily small-scale rural initiative characterized by small ponds with size ranging from 150 to 500 m2. About 17,740 people are involved in aquaculture with 14,740 practicing freshwater fish farming and 3,000 in mariculture. Current cultured specie...

A study was conducted in January through February 2004 to assess the fishpond performance in the districts of Muleba and Bukoba (Kagera region) and Tarime (Mara region) in the Lake Victoria basin, Tanzania. Removal or depletion method was used to estimate the total number and weight of the fish to establish the pond performance. One-way Analysis of...

The effects of different dietary proportions of cotton seed cake and soyaben meal on the growth performance of Oreochromis variabilis (Boulenger, 1906) fry (Osteichthyes: Cichlidae) were investigated in a hatchery. The diet experiments were conducted in modified 1000-l circular polytex tanks. O. variabilis fry were fed on three different dietary pr...

An experiment was conducted for 210 days to demonstrate the role of vegetable-fish culture integration in the growth, yields and economic benefits of fish and vegetables. Two 200 m2 earthen fishponds were stocked with Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus at 20,000 fish fingerlings per hectare. Pond A was fertilized with chicken manure and stocked fis...

Fish is produced for human consumption and other purposes through capture fisheries and aquaculture. Fish production from natural stocks has already reached its limits and is declining while aquaculture production is increasing. Aquaculture is making a significant contribution to fish production in several countries thus proving to be a potential a...