According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Singapore aquaculture production in 2017 was of 5,891 tonnes, of which 2,094 tonnes was of milkfish Chanos chanos. Milkfish are cultured in traditional floating coastal farms at East Johor Strait, where farmers stock milkfish larvae in either canvas or fine mesh nets. Nevertheless, farmers face some challenges, such as very low survival rate in such early stages. Some farmers attempted to increase larval survival by purchasing commercially available live feed products, which increased both operation and logistical costs. Massive larvae mortality of 92 to 95% at early stages is a common issue faced by the milkfish farmers. This is mainly due to difficulty in feeding nutritionally adequate live feed and in the adequate amount, other than the issue of inadequate husbandry that also includes poor water quality. To help farmers overcome such issue, the objective of this study is to cultivate brackish water cladocerans and formulating nutritional enrichments that are low cost, easy to prepare and nutritionally adequate for milkfish larvae.
Milkfish larvae would be stocked in a low-height rectangular fibre tank within a lab at AIC facility. The simple setup stimulates a typical below-platform canvas setup at traditional fish farms. General husbandry for milkfish larvae is done in a batch cultivating method, inclusive of water changes, bottom cleaning and basic water parameter monitoring, which bears some similarities to what farmers have been practicing outdoors. The milkfish larvae are fed with cultivated and enriched zooplankton (cladocerans) twice per day, throughout all stages until metamorphosis or 1-inch long fingerling stage. The cladocerans are enriched with formulated powder feed made up of commonly available ingredients such as baker’s yeast, rice bran and soybean cake. The fecundity, density and nutritive value of the cladocerans fed with the formulated feed will be measured. The growth rates, survival rates and live prey consumption rate of milkfish larvae to fingerling stage will also be measured to assess efficacy of the enriched live feed on growth performance and survival of the milkfish larvae.