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The culture of the giant freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii de Man) in Cuba. Report of the first technical assessment mission, May 7th - 30th 1990

Year of publication 1990

Pages p.46

Author J.F. Wickins;Fisheries and Aquaculture Management Division

Product type Project

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) The Cuban government wish to expand the tourist industry as a sorce of much needed foreign exchange. Opportunites to supply and support the industry are actively being sought and include the provision of fish and shellfish foods from fisheries and aquaculture to supply the hotel and restaurant enterprises throughout the designated tourist areas. The culture of the Giant Freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) is one such Trials are being made with pond reared stock using three methods to improve breeding; i) eyestalk ablation; ii) photoperiod manipulation; iii) artificial insemination. In the hatchery larvae are fed algae followed by minced clam, squid, marine fish and Artemia but Nippai prepared feeds are also used. A nursery phase is employed lasting 30–40 days which takes the shrimp from 5–10 day old post-larvae to 0.5 to 1.0 g juveniles. Stocking rate is 100/sq m but trials, have been made with 1000–2000 in 70 t tanks. In the on-growing phase shrimp are stocked at 5/m2, feed is given at from 15 to 2.5% per day and salinity is 25%. Feed costs around 200–250 pesos per tonne and contains squid, shrimp meal (from processed P. schmitti caught at sea) and zeolite. Problems with unstable artificial feed are common. Production is around 400–500 kg/ha/cycle and at present there are 1.6 to 1.7 cycles/yr. Newness of the ponds, inexperience and climatic changes are constraints on production. Early trials with P. notialis were not encouraging as growth stopped at 6–8 g, howev er new trials may be undertaken.

Cite this content as:

Wickins, J.F. 1990. The culture of the giant freswater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii de Man) in Cuba. Report of the first technical assessment mission, May 7th - 30th 1990. (np). 46 p.

Language English

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    Studies on the culture of the freshwater prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii at various stocking size and density in ricefields
    Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia
    1988
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    Experiments were conducted to investigate the possibility of prawn culture in ricefields. The work was undertaken in cooperation with the Farming System Research Institute in Bangkok and the Sakolnakorn Fisheries Station in Sakolnakorn in the North-east Thailand. The experiments were conducted on farmers' fields. Eight farmers participated in the research. They carried out day to day management of the 16 plots. The plots were prepared for the experiments by digging a trench around the ricefiel d. Paddy was planted and tillered before the prawn were stocked. Prawn were of two sizes, just metamorphosed postlarvae (PL 1) measuring 1–1.5 cm in length, others as PL 60 measuring 4.5 – 4.8 cm in length. The latter ones were first nursed for 60 days in ponds before stocking in the ricefield. The PL 1 were stocked at the rate of 1.25/m2 meter and PL 60 at 0.31, 0.63 and 1.25/m2. Thus the rate of stocking varied from 3100 to 12500/hectare. The size of each of the ricefields in this experiment w as about 1600 square meter. After a culture period of 90 to 100 days the prawn were handpicked after draining or pumping the water out of the field. Six plots belonging to three farmers were infested with large predatory fish following heavy rain that flooded the fields and damaged the screening material of 50 cm height put on the dikes surrounding the plots. Flooding and infestation with fish were perhaps the main reasons for very low survival rates of 1 to 9% in these plots. Other fields gav e survival rates of 10 to 89 %. The PL 1 in ricefields grew to 5.4 grammes after a rearing period of 90 days. However 34 % of the population had an average weight of 17.1 grammes indicating clearly that the stocked PL grew extremely well in a ricefield ecosystem.
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