Shellfish Breeding and Hatchery Management (2+1)

1.1.4 Breeding of freshwater prawns

The first successful attempt of captive breeding of freshwater prawn was done by S.W. Ling in a Malaysian Laboratory for Macrobrachium rosenbergii in the year 1969. He completed his experimental larval cycle in captivity for M. rosenbergii. Later the larval rearing under laboratory conditions was perfected by Fujimura in the year 1970 in Hawaii. This was further picked up by countries like France, Thailand, Taiwan and India for controlled seed production of M. rosenbergii. Further research was done on different aspects of rearing such as feeds and feeding, health management, etc in Taiwan, Hawaii, French Guyana , and India for M. rosenbergii and M. malcolmsonii simultaneously.

Similar to M. rosenbergii, controlled breeding and seed production was developed for many native Macrobrchium spp in other countries like China for M. nipponense. This has led to the expanded farming of Macrobrchium spp in the world.