Aquaculture is the farming of fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatic plants, algae, and other aquatic organisms. Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the harvesting of wild fish.It is less commonly spelled aquiculture, and is also known as aquafarming. Mariculture refers to aquaculture practiced in marine environments and in underwater habitats.

The Department of Aquaculture is one of the four departments of the Faculty of Fisheries of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) leading to academics, research and development in Aquaculture science. Aquaculture studies have been started in BAU since 1961 through an evolutionary process of the Department of Aquaculture and Management in 1967, and the very Department of Aquaculture (DoA) in 1996. At present, the department has 18 teaching staffs specialised in different areas of aquaculture.The DoA teaches 22 courses at BSc and 16 courses at MS level. Currently, the total number of MS and PhD students are about 70 and 15, respectively. The DoA offers PhD in different fields of aquaculture, until 2017 it awarded about 35 PhDs.

The advanced research works related to aquaculture system design, intensive aquaculture, integrated aquaculture, fish nutrition and feeding, and fish disease diagnosis and treatment are going on in DoA. A large number of applied aquaculture technologies have been developed from DoA. The notables are artificial fish seed production and culture technique of Magur and Shing in 1980s; mass fish seed production and nursing; mono and polyculture of fish sspecies; decentralised fish seed production; aquaponic system; Integrated Floating Cage Aquageoponics System (IFCAS); Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA); fish feed formulation and production technologies; diagnostic and treatment methods of fish diseases; and development of a herbal fish medicine 'Herbicon'.

The DoA is committed to carryout demand-led aquaculture research with a vision for increasing fish production, ensuring food and nutrition security, creating employment opportunities for thr poor people of Bangladesh, and creating export trade of fish.