In intensive shrimp farming, shrimp seed quality is the most important factor determining the success of farming. The quality of the shrimp seed depends significantly on the quality of the broodstocks. The quality of broodstock is greatly affected by the source of food for nurture. Currently, the most popular food sources used to feed broodstocks are polychaeta worms and hermit crabs, also known as resident crabs (Paguroidea), because they have nutritional value with very high protein content that helps gonad development and larval quality.
The project aims to research and select a number of species of polychaetes and hermit crabs for the purpose of breeding and raising biomass as feed for broodstock. A special feature of the project is that for the first time in the Mekong Delta, natural foods with high nutritional value such as polychaetes and hermit crabs are actively researched, aiming for raising biomass of these objects on a large scale which can meet the need for broodstock farming to produce tens of billions of marine shrimp larvae each year to serve the current marine shrimp farming industry. The second special feature is that the project will create a disease-free food source that meets biosecurity requirements to create a disease-free shrimp seed source. Food collected directly from the wild is often contaminated with pathogens, especially hermit crabs (crustaceans have potential white spot pathogens). If this food source is used directly, the probability of the broodstock being infected is very high and the risk of infection to the larvae is also very high. Another important point of the project is that by raising and producing biomass of polychaete worms and hermit crabs, the project contributes to limiting the exploitation and catching of these animals in the wild (at risk of severe decline), minimizing the decline of polychaete and hermit crab resources and biodiversity.
The project focuses on solving the problem of food sources for shrimp broodstock, which currently most hatcheries do not seem to be proactive about. The proposed solution is to recruit some common species of polychaetes and hermit crabs in the Mekong Delta, research and develop artificial reproduction processes and raise biomass of these animals as food to feed shrimp. The biological and nutritional specialties of adult polychaetes and hermit crabs will be researched as a basis for developing artificial reproduction procedures for these species. The biomass farming process is also developed based on the results of research on nutritional behavior and environmental factors in the larval and juvenile stages. The results of the project are the development of (1) a process for artificial reproduction of polychaete and hermit crab; (2) process of raising polychaete and hermit crab biomass to feed shrimp broodstock. Currently, the demand for live feed for black tiger shrimp and white-leg shrimp broodstock is very high, especially for large-scale hatcheries, so the ability to apply these processes to create food sources for broodstock shrimp in hatcheries is completely realistic. In addition, the commercialization or transfer potential of the process is very high.
