In the tropics, where berried females are readily available, special broodstock holding facilities within hatcheries are not necessary, although the advantages of maintaining special broodstock ponds have already been mentioned.
However, in temperate zones where freshwater prawns are reared in the summer, indoor broodstock facilities are essential.
In temperate zones it is necessary to provide holding facilities for over-wintering. Broodstock need to be maintained for up to six months and the temperature needs to be above 25°C to prevent loss of eggs.
To conserve water and maintain good water quality, a recirculation system is suggested, similar to that used in recirculation hatcheries, as described later in this manual.
Nylon mesh netting should be hung vertically or horizontally in the water column (buoyed with PVC piping and floats) and placed on the bottom of the tanks.
This minimizes the total tank volume needed, reduces cannibalism, and increases fecundity. The use of large mesh sizes reduces the amount of fouling. The egg-carrying capacity of the females is reduced at higher broodstock densities.
A maximum stocking rate of one adult prawn per 40 L of water is recommended. For every twenty females, you should hold one or two BC males and two or three OC males (each >35 g), if eggs are required 3-4 months after the adults are stocked. If newly hatched larvae are not required until six months after the adults are stocked into broodstock facilities, the number of OC males should be adjusted to three or four per 20 females (to allow for male mortalities).
The total quantity of broodstock to be maintained in temperate facilities obviously depends on the final demand for PL. Only about 5% of the females will spawn together and an adult mortality of 50% should be anticipated during the holding period.
Assuming an average of 45 000 larvae/45 g female, obtaining a single batch of 100 000 larvae at the end of the holding season would therefore require you to over-winter about 90 females, each about 45 g in weight (plus, using the proportions and timing indicated in the previous paragraph, 5-9 BC males and 9-18 OC males).
This would provide a batch of 100 000 larvae at least once a week, thus allowing your hatchery to supply enough PL to stock 1 ha of ponds (assuming a stocking rate of 5 PL/L and a 50% hatchery survival rate to the PL stage) per week. These numbers can be adjusted according to your needs.
It would be foolish to base the whole cycle of operations on a single tank, however; many accidents and other unforeseen circumstances can arise. It is therefore suggested that you split whatever broodstock animals you hold into a minimum of three holding systems.
Managing your broodstock:
Managing broodstock in outdoor facilities in the tropics is similar to managing grow-out facilities. However, in temperate climates where broodstock are over-wintered, special care is necessary to ensure good health and maintain maximum survival. Broodstock should be disinfected upon arrival at the hatchery by placing them into freshwater containing 0.2 to 0.5 ppm of copper sulphate or 15 to 20 ppm of formalin for 30 minutes.
However, it should be remembered that the use of these chemicals in aquaculture is prohibited or controlled in some countries. Aeration should be provided during these treatments. Similar precautions should be taken in handling berried females which are brought into tropical zone hatcheries from ponds or the wild.
Adult prawns can then be transferred to holding tanks which contain freshwater at an optimum temperature of 27-31°C. The water quality for indoor broodstock holding facilities should be similar to that for hatcheries. The selection and sex ratio of males to females has been discussed earlier.
A nutritionally complete diet is essential to promote superior egg production and quality. Commercially pelleted grow-out feeds can be used but need supplementation. Broodstock should be fed at a daily rate of 1-3% of total biomass, adjusted to match consumption. Half of the pelleted ration should be substituted with the equivalent amount of pieces of beef liver or squid (or similar fresh feeds, such as mussel flesh), cut to the appropriate size, at least twice per week. 1 kg of a wet feed is roughly equivalent to 200 g of pelleted diet.
Thus, (for example) if the normal daily ration you are providing to your broodstock is 30 g of the pelleted diet, on two days per week you would need to replace half of it with 75 g of the fresh feed. The daily food ration should be given in two equal portions, normally in the early morning and late afternoon. Two broodstock diets designed for Macrobrachium rosenbergii are described in Annex 3.
Specific separate facilities for hatching freshwater prawn eggs are rarely used in commercial hatcheries. The most common system for hatching utilized in tropical hatcheries is described in the hatchery management section of this manual. However, especially in temperate hatchery facilities, a separate hatching facility is easier to control. In this system, berried females can be collected from the holding system and placed into a tank where the eggs are allowed to hatch, and stage I larvae are obtained either with a collecting device, as mentioned below, or simply netted from the system.
Figure 12 shows a hatching system that consists of a 300 L rectangular hatching tank and two 120 L circular tanks, one for collecting larvae and one to house a biofilter. Up to sixty females with brown to grey eggs can be placed into the hatching tank, which contains adequate habitat structures (e.g. a piece of pipe for each individual). The hatching tanks need to be covered to exclude light and the interior should be painted with black epoxy-resin paint, except around the area where the overflow pipe is located, which should be painted with a lighter colour, such as beige (or, if the tank is translucent, left unpainted). Black painted grating (e.g. egg crating or louvre material) is used to divide the tank into two chambers.
The largest chamber, occupying about 80% of the total tank volume, is used to hold the females and to keep them separate from the larvae as they hatch. Water overflows into the collection tank and then passes through a 180 µm mesh screen, located around a central standpipe, into a biofilter.
The larvae will flow with the water leaving the hatching tank because they (being positively attracted to light) move towards the lighter area of its wall, which is illuminated.
Water is returned to the hatching tank from the filter tank by airlifts (Figures 13a and 13b). Hatching usually occurs at night but as the hatching tanks are covered, larvae can be collected during the daytime.
The water in this system should be preferably maintained around 28°C. If you use slightly saline water (~5 ppt) it will result in greater hatchability. Recently, some evidence has been published (Law, Wong and Abol-Munafi, 2001) indicating that the hatching process is extremely pH sensitive.
If this is corroborated, the pH may need to be adjusted to 7.0-7.2 for hatching. pH outside this range appears to result in substantially reduced hatching rates. The light regime for the broodstock is not important but direct sunlight should be avoided. To enhance water quality for the hatching larvae, it is recommended that berried females should not be fed at all during the 2-3 day period prior to egg hatching. Larvae are then removed from the collection tank and transferred to the hatchery phase. Further details of this and alternative hatching systems are provided in Daniels, Cavalli and Smullen (2000).
Author:
Michael B. New
