Aquacultural Engineering 5 (1986) 219-233

General Introduction to the P rawn Pond System in Taiwan* I-Chiu Liao

Tungkang Marine Laboratory, Tungkang, Pingmng,Taiwan 92804, ROC

ABSTRACT The remarkable achievements of prawn culture in recent years in Taiwan have been widely recognized. In 1984, the annual production of the grass prawn Penaeus monodon alone reached 18000 tonnes, making it one of the most important arid.fastest growing aquaculture items. Its production is still increasing and its importance will continue to grow in the coming years. When considering the progress of prawn culture, aquaculture engineering problems such as pond construction, water inlet and outlet systems, and aeration systems are of great concern. An introduction to prawn pond construction and accessory equipment in Taiwan is given, and a comparison with the representative prawn pond systems in Japan and Hawaii is made. The present problems faced in these areas and possible solutions are also discussed.

INTRODUCTION The prawn culture industry in Taiwan has been highly praised by aquaculturists around the world. The most important and popular penaeid prawns under culture in Taiwan are grass prawn Penaeus monodon; sand shrimp Metapenaeus ensis; kuruma prawn P japonicus; and red-tail prawn R penicillams. Taking grass prawn as an example, its annual production recenth" exceeded 18 000 tonnes (Chiang and Liao, 1 9 8 5 ) a n d it has been widely recognized as one of *Contribution B No. 34 from the TungkangMarine Laboratory. 219 Aquacultural Engineering 0144-8609/86/S03.50 -- Elsevier Applied Science Publishers Ltd. England. 1986. Printed in Great Britain

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the most suitable prawn species for culturing (Liao, 1981; Liao and Chao, 1983). Because the ~ass prawn has been cultured longer in Taiwan than in any other country, the experience accumulated here may be transferable to other situations. Because of this, Taiwan will play a very important role in the future of grass prawn culture in the rest of the world. There are several reasons for the flourishing success of the prawn industry in Taiwan. The establishment of larval rearing techniques to supply all of the larvae needed at a reasonable price, the development of more than 28 brands of inexpensive, commercially available formulated diets, the farmers' diligent, hard work and the researchers' efforts are just some of them. Despite all of these achievements, problems still exist. The increase in stocking density has resulted in more prawn diseases. The coordination of supply and demand at the market has been difficult. The quality of marketable prawns needs to be upgraded to successfully compete in the international market. Aquaculture engineering is looked upon as an important tool to further the development of the prawn industry. The improvements pond layout, proper construction, and equipment selection can make are most significant. An ideally designed and constructed pond has the advantages of being easy to operate, labor saving and able to provide the prawn with an optimal living habitat. Under such an environment, prawns should be healthy and achieve rapid growth and high survival rates. The business therefore can enjoy a much smoother and more profitable operation. In order to establish the grounds for the further development of prawn culture in Taiwan, grow-out pond construction, hatchery equipment, water pumping, and inlet and outlet, as well as aeration setup, are summarized. Intensive grow-out ponds for culturing kuruma prawn in Japan and a superintensive grow-out raceway for culturing blue shrimp P. stylirostris in Hawaii are also introduced for reference.

DEVELOPMENT OF GROW-OUT POND CONSTRUCTION In the early history of prawn culture in Taiwan some 300 years ago, there were no written records of pond culture and hence no detailed descriptions can be found today. Judging from the simple, rough, traditional ponds that are still in existence in parts of Southeast Asia,

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the pond shown in Fig. l(a,i) is most likely the type which was originally used for the polyculturing of shrimp, prawns and fish. These usually irregularly shaped, mud dike ponds often have tree roots~ rocks and other obstacles on the uneven bottom. The production of prawns depended on many uncontrollable environmental factors and people believed it was luck which determined the harvest. Shown in Fig. l(a,ii) is the slightly improved polyculture grow-out pond for prawns and milkfish. Such ponds were used widely before

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the 1960s. The surface area of these ponds was usually 1-3 ha, larger than the prawn ponds used in more recent years. The dikes of the ponds are usually made of earth, but the inner walls may be partially of brick or cement plating. The same water-gate is used for both inlet and outlet. The water supply and drainage depend totally on high and low tides. During that period of polyculture, the prawn was considered a by-product of the milkfish pond, and only a few hundred kilograms of prawn were produced per hectare (Huang, 1969; Liao and Huang. 1973; Liao, 1981). It was not until 1968, with the establishment of larval rearing techniques, that large scale prawn culture became possible (Liao, 1981). In the following years, existing milkfish ponds were improved by increasing the water depth from 30-40 cm to 50-70 cm for use in extensive prawn culture. Locally available snails. soybean cakes and trash fish were ideal supplemental feeds. A stocking density of 3-3-5 post-larvae m-2 was adopted and a satisfacto~' harvest of 0"5-1'0 tonnes year -~ was achieved (Huang, 1969; Liao and Huang, 1973). Starting in the early 1970s, grow-out ponds began to be constructed especially for prawns. Better designed ponds of 0"1-0"5 ha appeared in the late 1970s. Water distribution systems and aeration equipment were taken into consideration by biologists, designers and engineers. Figure l(b) shows the grow-out pond designed by the author in 1980 upon the request of Kuan-Fu prawn farm located at Fangliao (near Tungkang). This design was recently adopted by the San Miguel Corporation Aquaculture Center, in the Philippines, with satisfactory results (Liu and Mancebo, 1983). It is equipped with a central drainage system for gathering and expelling waste. Stocking densities as high as 30-40 post-larvae m -2, survival rates of 80%, and harvests reaching 8-4-11.2 tonnes ha-~ crop-~ have been obtained from this type of pond (Liao and Chao, 1983). In 1981, the author designed another type of grow-out pond for the Taiwan Sugar Corporation in the Chiayi tidal lands in cooperation with researchers in the same company. As shown in Fig. 1(c), each unit of the ponds is designed for segmental culturing and consists of a small pond for P,~-20 to juveniles of 2 g, a medium sized pond for juveniles of ~ g to about 5 ,, and a large pond for prawns of 5 g to marketable size. It is very convenient to take advantage of water current to shift the prawns from one pond to the next as they grow. Meanwhile pond bottoms are maintained in a better condition because the period of

General introduction to the prawn pond ustern in Taiwan

] 23

culture in each pond is shortened. This will result m a higher su~ival rate and faster growth rate. Some disadvantages of this Wpe include the following. (1) Grow-out ponds with a surface area of 3 ha are too large to operate efficiently as an intensive system. The optimum and the acceptable maximum size needs to be determined. (2) The large. rectangularly shaped ponds are not suitable for central drainage. The optimum shape and size ratio should be found. Since the small, medium, and large ponds are a compact unit, any change in one part will cause changes in the other parts. In summary, after careful consideration, some improvements should be made to the whole structure in order to devise a more efficient pond for growing prawns. D E V E L O P M E N T OF H A T C H E R Y C O N S T R U C T I O N In 1968, when the author made a major breakthrough in the larval rearing techniques of grass prawn (Liao et al., 1969), no hatchery equipment was available. The common 0-5 or 1 tonne round plastic tanks with fiat bottoms were adopted for hatchery and nursery use. At the end of same year, a preliminary grass prawn hatchery was set up under the guidance of the author. A well insulated building with concrete tanks was constructed. The next year, a formal hatchery building provided with a heating facility was established at TML (Tungkang Marine Laboratory) and it became the fundamental model for later hatchery construction (Fig. 2(a)). A prawn hatchery usually consists of one or two rows of concrete tanks, each with an approximate capacity of 50 tonnes. Figure 2(b) shows an improved hatchery with separate outdoor tanks covered with PVC sheeting. This has the advantage of easy management, disinfection and cleaning. Figure 2(c) shows the ladder style hatchery which is even more functional and labor saving as it utilizes different water levels based on the slope of the ground. At present, there are more than 1200 prawn hatcheries in Taiwan and a total of 1.3 x 10 '~ prawn larvae were produced in 1984 (Liao, 1985; Chiang and Liao, 1985). PUMPING, WATER DISTRIBUTION A N D D R A I N A G E The accessories of prawn ponds such as water pumping and inlet and outlet systems are as important as pond construction.

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There are four major methods for water supply used in Taiwan today. (1) The utilization of high and low tides, supplemented with pumping, usually supplies water to ponds located near rivers or estuaries. (2) Shown in Fig. 3(a), pipes are extended into coastal water for direct pumping of sea water. No filtration is used to prevent unwanted organisms from entering the pond. (3) Shown in Fig. 3(b), pipes are buried in the sand on the beach and sea water is thus naturally filtered when it is pumped. Sometimes a sea water well is dug in the sand and then the naturally filtered sea water in the well is pumped to the ponds. (4) When underground sea water is pumped, a water spilling ladder is used to expose the less oxygenated water to air before it is used for prawn culture (Fig. 3(c)).

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To utilize the tidal difference for filling and draining, one of the water-gates shown in Fig. 4 is usually used. In order to increase the water flowing through the filter nets. the design has been improved to increase the total filter surface area. T h e inlet and outlet water-gates are positioned at locations for most functional water supply and drainage. When water is supplied by pumping, a m o r e flexible and effective water system can be used. Taking the central drainage device as an example, in addition to the central water-gate, there is a side gate at one corner for complete drainage during the final harvest as well as for sludge removal. AERATION DEVICE Farmers often underestimate the difference a well-designed aeration device can make in increasing the final production. According to the

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author's experience, one can stock only 30 0 0 0 - 5 0 000 prawns hain a non-aerated pond, while 300 0 0 0 - 7 0 0 000 prawns ha-~ can be stocked in a m o d e m , well designed and efficiently aerated pond. This difference is mostly due to the use of aeration equipment to increase dissolved oxygen in the water. Several prevailing styles of aeration are illustrated in Fig. 5. The most economic and acceptable one is the paddle wheel which has greatly benefited prawn farmers. People have been exploring ways to improve the mechanism in terms of more durable materials and

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efficiency. The placement of the paddle wheel is also being studied to discover the best location for optimal pond aeration.

TWO FOREIGN SYSTEMS OF PRAWN POND The intensive culture pond system of kuruma prawn in Japan and the superintensive prawn culture pond system in Hawaii are introduced for reference and comparison. Figure 6 illustrates a circular intensive culture pond (23 m in diameter and 2.5 m deep) for kuruma prawn in Japan. It was designed especially for the kuruma prawn which has the habit of burying itself in the bottom sand and whose growth and survival rates are closely related to the condition of the bottom layer of sand. How to prevent the sand layer from fouling during daily use was the key concern during pond design and construction. As shown in Fig. 6, a false sand bed is made with an empty, deeper bottom to make use of the circling water current to efficiently expel wastes into the central drain pipe (Fig. 6 -- G). In addition, a continuously rotating spray inlet pipe (Fig. 6 B) across and over the pond, and two bottom drain pipes (Fig. 6 -- I) under the false sand bottom, are installed for better sand filter maintenance and water exchange. Although such a facility can achieve a unit production as high as 27-6 tonnes ha -1 (Kurata et al., 1984; Shigueno, 1985), it would cost a large amount of money and labor to
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construct and maintain the false sand bed in prime condition. Therefore this system is not recommended for any prawn other than the kuruma prawn, whose market value can reach the incredibly high price of USS80 kg- Lin Japan. Figure 7 illustrates a superintensive pilot culture pond for prawn culture (Mahler et al., 1974). In order to culture blue shrimp at an extremely high density, this system was adopted in Hawaii. This system consists of two sets of 10 m x 50 m raceways in an aquacell. The water is aerated with splashing and an 02 contactor. This system can be stocked at a density of over 4 kg m -z and harvests of 70 tonnes ha -~ crop -~ have been reported (J. R. Carpenter, N. Chwang, personal communications). Such a system gives the highest harvest of any penaeid prawn culture system known. If the technology transfer of this ideal culture pond system is desired, one should consider the cost of this aquacell technology, management, and the feasibility if applied to other penaeid species.

DISCUSSION The history of intensive prawn culture in Taiwan is shorter than that in Japan, where the pioneering work was done; however, a more

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progressive development has been made in Taiwan. The annual production of cultured grass prawn in Taiwan slightly exceeded that of cultured kuruma prawn in Japan in 1978, but became 12.5 times more in 1985 (Table 1). It is believed that the difference will become even larger in the future. Other evidence of the rapid development of grass prawn culture in Taiwan is ~ven in Table 2. Among the five major grass prawn exporting sources from which Japan imported in 1981, Taiwan was in last place with only 100 tonnes. By 1985, Taiwan had become the largest exporting source of grass prawn to Japan with more than 13 000 tonnes or 42% of the total Japanese imports of frozen grass prawn. It is likely that Taiwan will continue to rank first for at least the next few years. It should be especially noted that the grass prawn exported from Taiwan is obtained totally from prawn farms instead of ocean harvest. The continuous progress of prawn culture in the future will depend upon improving culture technologies. This, in turn, ,,','ill depend on the combination of en~neering, architecture, and hardware design and
TABLE 1 Comparison of Annual Production of Grass Prawn I: m o n o d o n in Taiwan and Kuruma Prawn l~.japonicusin Japan from 1974 to 1985
1974 1975 1 9 7 6 I ~.]aponicus 911 936 1042 I'. mottodott 140 150 270 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 19,5'2 19,5'3 1984 196'5

I 124 1 100

1 184 1 556

1480 4123

1 546 5000

1666 6000

2000 8000

1949 15000

2037 18000

2400 30000

Unit: tonnes. TABLE 2 Export of Frozen Grass Prawn P. m o n o d o n to the Japanese Market from Five Principal Prawn Exporting Sources from 1981 to 1985

Year
1981 1982 1983 1984 1985

Banghtdesh 2 500 3 000 3 000 3 500 4900

India 2 500 3 000 3 000 4 200 4500

Indonesia 800 1 000 1 500 3 900 4400

Taiwan 100 1 300 5 000 7 700 13000

Philippines I 000 I 500 2 500 3 500 4000

Total 6 900 9 800 15 000 22 800 30800

Unit: tonnes.

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construction. At present, the technology most lacking in Taiwan is aquaculture engineering. The majority of prawn farms in Taiwan are family-run. Farmers seldom ask professionals for help in planning and designing the culture ponds; rather they construct their farms according to personal preference, limited know-how, and the experience of other farms. Lacking a blueprint for coordinated design of the prawn culture area, one frequently finds an array of odd shapes and sizes of ponds, with water pipes added every which way, often as an afterthought. The scene not only detracts from the eye, but also from potential profits. This haphazard construction already causes drainage problems which may result in contamination and disease. In addition, prawn culture areas for grass prawn, lacking aquaculture engineering, are already seriously taxing the underground water supply, which in turn causes land depressions and salt water incursion. A better overall plan with stronger management must be devised. Recirculating systems also need to be designed to reduce these problems. Some 17 years ago, pioneers in grass prawn culture had to decide on an optimum size of hatchery pond. This was the initial engineering step in this field. At that time the large 100 tonne hatchery tank used for the community culture system of kuruma prawn in Japan was the only reference. To use such a large hatchery pond, one must acquire a good number of spawners or millions of larvae at the same time. However, large numbers of spawners of grass prawn are very difficult to obtain. Thus, it was assumed that large hatchery' tanks would be neither practical nor economical. After lengthy consideration, the small sized hatchery pond was adopted by the author and also by private hatcheries following the author's suggestion. Finally a separate culture system especially designed for grass prawn hatcheries was established. If the large sized pond similar to that used for kuruma prawn had originally been adopted, no doubt many of the inconveniences, headaches and problems currently being experienced by other countries would have been encountered here as well (Liao, 1981). This suggests that aquaculture engineering has a great and lasting effect on prawn culture as a whole. It is hoped that aquaculture engineers and specialists will carry' out meaningful research to further benefit the aquaculture industry'. In summary, aquaculture engineering should contribute greatly to the future development of the prawn culture industry, Greater automation is needed and must come from the use of modern day

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technologies. The current mosaic of disorder and waste at the pond site will gradually give way as economic factors and proper management are taken into further consideration. When the principles and practices of sound engineering know-how are applied, together with a knowledge of biology, ecology and economics, the prawn industry cannot help but become stronger.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author is indebted to Nai-Hsien Chao, Pamela Wang, Chin-Chu Tseng, Li-Lan Ling, Yi-Ping Chen, and Yuan Wang who made helpful suggestions and contributions to complete this manuscript. The author also thanks Mr Y. H. Chou, Chief Engineer of Cheng-Ping Architect and Associates, for his enthusiastic assistance. Finally, the author would like to thank the China Committee for Scientific and Scholarly Communication with the United States, the Academia Sinica, ROC; and the Board of Science and Technology for International Development, Office of International Affairs, National Research Council, USA. They organized the workshop and provided the participants with the opportunity to discuss common interests in aquaculture engineering and simulation.

REFERENCES Chiang, R & Liao, I. C. (1985). The practice of grass prawn (Penaeus monodon) culture in Taiwan. Presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the World Mariculture Society, Orlando, Florida, USA, 13-17 January, 1985. Huang, T. L. (1969). Prawn culture. Bull. Fish. Assoc. Taiwan, 1, 54-60. Kurata, H., Shigueno, K. & Yatsuyanagi, K. (1984). Kuruma shrimp culture in Japan. NOAA Technical Report HMFS, 16, 9-15. Liao, I.C. (1981). Status and problems of grass prawn culture in Taiwan. Presented at R O C - J A P A N Symposium on Mariculture, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC, 13-24 December, 1981. Liao, I. C. (1985). A brief review on the larval rearing techniques of penaeid prawns. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Culture of Penaeid Prawns/Shrimps, eds Y. Taki, J. H. Primavera and J. A. Llobrera, Aquaculture Dept. SEAFDEC, Iloilo, The Philippines, pp. 65-78.

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Liao, I. C. & Chao, N. H. (1983). Development of prawn culture and its related studies in Taiwan. Presented at First International Biennial Conference on Warm Water Aquaculnlre -- Crustacea, Brigham Young University, Hawaii Campus, Laie, Hawaii, USA. 9-11 February. 1983. Liao. I. C. & Huang, T. L. (1973). Experiments on the propagation and culture of prawns in Taiwan. In: Coastal Aquaculture in the Indo-Pacific Region, ed. T. V. R. Pillay, Fishing News, London, pp. 238-354. Liao. I. C., Huang, T. L. & Katsutani. K. (1969). Summary of preliminau report on artificial propagation of Penaeus rnonodon Fabricius. JCRR Fish. Ser., 8, 67-71. Liu, M. S. & Mancebo, V. J. (1983). Pond culture of Penae,~s rnonodon in the Philippines: survival, growth and yield using commercially formulated feed. J. World Maricul. Soc., 14, 75-'85. Mahler, L. E., Groh, J. E. & Hodges, C. N. (1974). Controlled-environment aquaculture. Proc. World MaricuL Soc., 5,379-84. Shigueno, K. (1975). Shrimp Culture in Japan, Association for International Technical Promotion, Tokyo, Japan, 153 pp. Shigueno, K. (1985). Intensive culture and feed development in Penaeus japonicus. In: Proceedings of the First International Cot(ere,we on the Culture of Penaeid Prawns/Shrirnps, eds Y. Taki, J. H. Primavera and J. A. Llobrera, Aquaculture Dept, SEAFDEC. Iloilo, The Philippines, pp. 115-22.