Aquaculture development in Singapore

Abstract

The trend of fish production in Singapore is towards increasing contribution from marine and brackishwater aquaculture. Aquaculture production in 1986 represented 6.8% of local fish production. It is envisaged that this sector will provide about 37.5% of production by 1995. Freshwater aquaculture will focus mainly on production of ornamental fish. Production from farming of freshwater food fish is not likely to increase significantly.

Commonly farmed marine finfishes are groupers (Epinephelus tauvina), sea bass (Lates calcarifer), and golden snapper (Lutjanus johni). Crustaceans include prawns (Penaeus merguiensis), crabs (Scylla serrata) and mussels (Perna viridis). Of the freshwater finfishes, the most commonly cultured are the grass, silver and bighead carps, red tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus hybrid), Lampam jawa (Puntius gonionotus), marble goby (Oxyleotrix marmorata) and the snakehead (Channa sp.).

Aquaculture systems use a combination of floating and shorebased techniques. Earthen ponds are utilized for the culture of freshwater carps, floating netcages for marine finfish, ponds and floating netcages for marine crustaceans, and rope culture for mussels. Some research and development studies conducted presently include maturation studies to solve the problem of inconsistent supply of prawn spawners, experiments or use of dry formulated feed to do away with dependency on trash fish as main feed for grow-out marine finfish, and investigations on diseases of prawns under intensive culture.

Constraints for large-scale production of finfish seeds lie in the large tank facilities required for producing live feed; for nursery operations, time and manpower required for grading and feeding; for growout systems, disease prevention and control; for prawn production, inconsistent spawner supply; and for mussel production, low consumer demand.

The species with the highest potential for fanning in Singapore is the banana prawn, Penaeus merguiensis as its culture can be intensified and high yields can be obtained.