October 18, 2007

India's Tamil Nadu begins commercial production of Tiger Shrimp seeds

India has started production of seeds of tiger shrimps on The Fisheries College and Research Institute's Maritech Research Centre campus in the Tamil Nadu state in southern India, The Hindu reported.

The hatchery was established recently at a cost of Rs.45 lakh  (US$111,000) allocated to the FCRI by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

The facility has a seawater pumping and filtration system, two High Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) lined sumps, ultra violet filters, cartridge filters, indoor and outdoor algal culture facilities, raceways to maintain brood stock, a spawning module, 20 larval rearing tanks of two tones capacity each and a laboratory to test water quality.

V.K. Venkataramani, Dean, FCRI, told The Hindu that the institute planned to produce 2 million tiger shrimp seeds a year during the first year, to be expanded to 5 million a year from the next year onwards.