Preparation of this document

The document has been funded and produced in the framework of the Technical Cooperation Programme between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations during the implementation of two unilateral trust fund projects, i.e. “Support to the Fish Farming Center (FFC), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia” and “Strengthening and supporting further development of aquaculture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.

The purpose of this manual is to provide a general overview of farming and management techniques needed to operate high-density polyethylene (HDPE) floating fish-culture cages, including the types of materials used, their technical specifications and operability.
The rationale behind this handbook is to contribute to the capacity building of technical staff on highly practical issues and the management of fish cage farms.
Moreover, this publication provides entrepreneurs, managers and workers involved in cage farming with a reference manual where they can find a rich source of technical and biological information, ranging from farm installation to the entire production cycle. The handbook also includes technical tables, logbook examples and functional suggestions acquired from years of field experience, which is shared with the readers.

This publication is also addressed to administrations, institutional organizations and development agencies involved in planning, ruling, licensing, subsidizing, etc., with the main practical and technical issues of this relatively new branch of aquaculture being systematically described and explained.
Cage aquaculture is nothing but fish production using a (relatively) new technological system. Thus, many of the issues related to fish biology, pathology, feeding, etc., are shared with all other fish production systems. For this reason, the authors have focused as much as possible on practical and operational issues related to cage aquaculture, while readers are referred to more generic literature to obtain in-depth information on other and general aquaculture practices.
The handbook briefly covers some important topics such as work safety while others are not dealt with at all (e.g. working boats and cranes, diving technique and equipment) as specific technical competences are required to treat these topics adequately.
Finally, procedures and operations described in this manual aim to provide the reader with possible solutions to problems and issues that are usually encountered in the cage farms. Nevertheless, each procedure inevitably needs to be revised and adapted to each site condition, workers’ experience, and the availability of labour, equipment and auxiliary boats.