A preliminary study of difur coast, tual city kei islands as site for sandfish holothuria scabra culture

Kei Islands is one of islands areas in East Indonesia that has big potential in marine fisheries, one of them is sea cucumber culture. The aim of this study is to obtain early information of water condition in Difur coast, Tual City, Kei Islands as a guidance to determine potential area for sea cucumber culture, commonly called sandfish Holothuria scabra. Transect with the size of 50x50 cm was used as a biological parameter installed in 2 different distances, which are 10 m between transek and 100 m between site of samples orthogonal to the coast. Temperature, pH, salinity, depth, current velocities, tidal range, and water transparency were measured at location, while dissolved oxygen, ammonia, and sediment were measured through laboratorium analysis. The results are temperature (28.4oC), ammonia (not detected), depth (0.5-1 m), water transparency (±1 m) and sediment (sand) considered as optimum condition for sandfish culture, however, salinity (33.21 ‰), pH (8.12), current velocities (0.03 m/s) and tidal range (1.84 m) show below of optimum scores for sandfish culture. As a biological parameter, Seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii) and macro alga (Ulva lactuca) have the highest attendance than others. To conclude, physics, chemistry, and biology parameters of Difur coast water in this early study can be classified as a “feasible enough” area as a site for sandfish H. scabra culture based on potential level in general.Keywords: Kei Islands, Sea cucumber, Holothuria scabra, potential, culture Proceedings of The 1st International Conference on Applied Marine Science and Fisheries Technology (MSFT), Tahun 2015, First Edition,hal: 133-140