Ireland: Snails and algae offer hope for novel tiger prawn production method

So claim the authors of a new paper, which details how a novel culture setup for giant tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) was established in King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) in Thailand. Two benthic organisms – a filamentous green alga (Chaetomorpha sp.) and a microsnail (Stenothyra sp.) – were placed in a number of the shrimp ponds shortly after being collected at an abandoned brackish pond in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon Province. The researchers note that these species “have no market value as fishery products, but are considered promising candidates as supplementary feeds for tropical Penaeidae. Both benthic species have been shown to promote shrimp growth, thrive in a wide range of shrimp pond conditions, particularly in terms of salinity and temperature, and grow abundantly in stagnant waters and/or channels in mangrove areas along tropical coasts”. They were propagated together with P. monodon post-larvae during an early culture stage in a group of outdoor ...