RAS Specialist Begins Pangasius Fingerling Improvement Program in Vietnam

Recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) specialist Alpha Aqua\r\nis piloting a new model for raising pangasius fingerlings in Vietnam, it\r\ntold Undercurrent News.

In recent years the inconsistent supply of fingerlings has\r\nemerged as one of the key factors in making pangasius a tricky species to work\r\nwith, with low survival rates and generally poor quality contributing\r\nto low supply and historically high prices in 2018.

This has prompted investment in R&D among some key\r\nplayers in the sector, including Vinh Hoan Corporation, Viet Uc Seafood\r\nCorporation, and Pharmaq.

A huge swathe of Vietnam's production remains small-scale,\r\nindependent farmers, which may not benefit from the investment being carried\r\nout by the biggest firms. Instead, Alpha Aqua -- working in Vietnam with\r\nR&D and consultancy firm Fresh Studio -- plans a model which can quickly\r\nbenefit the smaller farms.

Pangasius raised in the NANO RAS at 20 days old

It aims to develop protocols around the use of a small\r\nturnkey filtration unit, called a "NANO RAS", at sites where it will\r\nraise pangasius eggs to 30 days old, creating "champion" fingerlings\r\nwith far higher survival rates and strength than are currently the case.

"Traditionally eggs are hatched and put into a nursery\r\nponds where you pretty much hope they survive; you get quite low survival rates\r\nand quality," Alban Caratis of Fresh Studio told Undercurrent.

"Our plan is to sell 1 gram fingerlings to nursery\r\nfarmers 'pre-nursed'. We'll control their light, water temperature, feed, and\r\nso on, so they will be very strong. But selling them at 1g means nursery\r\nfarmers are not cut out of the chain -- they get much higher-quality products\r\nto sell, and buying them in at 30 days old also means they can run more growth\r\ncycles per year, so it should be win-win."

Alpha Aqua's chief operating officer for veterinary and\r\nbiological farmer expertise, Ramon Perez, acknowledged that margins at every\r\nstep of the pangasius farming business are tight, and the intention is to\r\nimprove that, not cut someone's margins even finer. 

He suggested the nursery farmers who join Fresh Studio and\r\nAlpha Aqua's service will also be invited to help test another innovation it\r\nand Fresh Studio is working on -- a water treatment "box" which\r\nfloats in ponds, acting as a "third lung" and increasing carrying\r\ncapacity and ecosystem stability. Pilot trials have already begun on this\r\nproduct, producing very promising results in boosting\r\nthe productivity of tilapia ponds.

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"In this way, I hope we are starting to create a holistic model of services which can really make a difference to pangasius\r\nfarming," said Perez.

Source: Undercurrent News