SEAFDEC/AQD Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center | Aquaculture Department

Production and delivery of aquaculture seeds remain uninterrupted at SEAFDEC/AQD based in Tigbauan, Iloilo despite the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) imposed in Iloilo and surrounding provinces.

Since December 2019 to February 2020, during otherwise zero-production-months, a total of 23 million good eggs were collected from the heated tank that contained 76 breeders. From these, almost 13 million normal larvae were hatched.

Improved feeding and water management helped them achieve higher survival, reaching as much as 10 percent from hatching to crablet sometime last year, which contributed to the hatchery’s production of over 650,000 pieces of crablets for 2019.

The quest for low-cost and eco-friendly aquafeeds received a boost with the recent US$30,800 upgrade of the feed mill of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) in Tigbauan, Iloilo.

Growing up to a foot long, three to a kilo, and with a taste very much likened to lobster and tiger shrimp, one would wonder why not more people in the Philippines are farming freshwater prawns.