Your premiere wholesaler of warmwater marine fish, fingerlings, and eggs for baitfish and foodfish grow-out, research, and restoration.
Your premiere wholesaler of warmwater marine fish, fingerlings, and eggs for baitfish and foodfish grow-out, research, and restoration.
Pinfish
Available products: Fertilized eggs, fingerlings, juvenile* or adult fish*.
Production: Several populations of broodstock have been selected from the wild and conditioned in an RAS system within our biosecure warehouse. All broodstock go through a rigorous month long quarantine prior to introducing into our RAS conditioning systems, therefore ensuring biosecurity of our stocks and eggs. Due to primary use of pinfish as live bait, we believe ensuring diverse wild genetics are maintained is a top priority. Therefore, we regularly introduce new broodstock to our populations from the wild each year.
Batches of eggs are checked for percent fertilization and disinfected prior to shipping. A sample of eggs will also be taken prior to shipment and incubated at LAB to ensure a quality hatch. Larvae are raised through to weaning and held until ~40dph prior to shipping to ensure hardiness and limit stress. Our facilities average 65-85% survival from egg through weaned juvenile. Juveniles can also be reared at LAB through to larger sizes, upon request. As our facilities include several smaller research systems, we have the ability to maintain family batches seperate or rear animals originating a particular location for your research and restoration needs.
Grow-out statistics: Pinfish can obtain live bait market size of 4inches in 3-5 months from weaning, depending on temperature and rearing conditions.
Sale Limitations: Because hatching occurs within 24 hours, we are limited to shipping eggs within North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Minimum orders apply. Expected availability of eggs Sept through June. Juveniles can be produced most months of the year.
*note we are a wholesaler and do not sell bait direct to consumer
Marine Baitfish 101
Saltwater baitfish are the bais of the marine food chain for many of our wild fisheries and conservation dependent species and support a multi-billion dollar commercial and recreational fishing industry in the United States.
Currently all saltwater baitfish are wild caught, subject to catch quotas and seasonal availability.
Live Advantage Bait LLC uses a permier aquaculture system to raise baitfish, creating year round supply for grow-out farms, researchers, restoration, bait-and-tackle shops and charter fishermen.
Pinfish 101
Pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides, is a member of the sparidae or sea bream family. Its common name is derived from the first, single, forward projecting spine that often offers a pin-prick to the hand of inattentive fisherman. Of the two dozen species of baitfish in Florida, pinfish is the most popular for both nearshore and coastal fishermen and has the highest potential for commercial aquaculture development.
Due to their large numbers and omnivorous diet, pinfish are one of the most important links between primary and secondary production in the SE U.S. estuaries. Pinfish, one of the most common nearshore fishes of the southern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts, represent an important keystone species to our estuaries, in particular our seagrass communities. Large juveniles graze on the epifaunal invertebrates of seagrass and other submerged vegetation, controlling the population of herbivores as well as maintain the photosynthetic potential of seagrass and other estarine plants. They are an important prey species for several larger recreational and commercial species, birds, and marine mammals. And due to their annual migration offshore to spawn, they also represent an important link between nearshore and offshore nutrient transport.
Pinfish Aquaculture
Currently there are no captive produceres of pinfish other than those who are supplied by Live Advantage Bait LLC. However, we hope this will soon change as the demand and viability of this industry is rapidly expanding.
We have also worked on the retailers selling live bait to develop a cheap and easy system ensuring 100% survival of our pinfish over 7+ days during display in tackle shops. Contact us if you would like a copy of this document.
Over the years we have developed and continuly updated a economic model for aquaculutre production of pinfish in both RAS and pond culture systems. Contact us if you would like a copy of this document.