Fresh Water Prawns Farm by Asiatravel.com

Asiatravel.com offers over 500,000 Hotels, Flights, Travel Packages, Tours & Attractions up to 75% discount. All with last minute availability & instant confirmation plus up to 5% cash rebate exclusively for our customers. For more information visit http://www.asiatravel.com A freshwater prawn farm is an aquaculture business designed to raise and produce freshwater prawn or shrimp1 for human consumption. Freshwater prawn farming shares many characteristics with, and many of the same problems as, marine shrimp farming. Unique problems are introduced by the developmental life cycle of the main species (the giant river prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii).[1] All farmed freshwater prawns today belong to the genus Macrobrachium. Until 2000, the only species farmed was the Giant river prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii, also known as the Malaysian prawn). Since then, China has begun farming the Oriental river prawn (M. nipponense) in large quantities, and India farms a small amount of monsoon river prawn (M. malcolmsonii). In 2003, these three species accounted for all farmed freshwater prawns, about two thirds M. rosenbergii and one third M. nipponense. There are about 200 species in the genus Macrobrachium. They occur throughout the tropics and subtropics on all continents except Europe. Giant river prawns live in turbid freshwater, but their larval stages require brackish water to survive. Males can reach a body size of 32 cm;females grow to 25 cm. In mating, the male deposits spermatophores on the underside of the female's thorax, between the walking legs. The female then extrudes eggs, which pass through the spermatophores. The female carries the fertilized eggs with her until they hatch; the time may vary, but is generally less than three weeks. A large female may lay up to 100,000 eggs. From these eggs hatch zoeae, the first larval stage of crustaceans. They go through several larval stages before metamorphosing into postlarvae, at which stage they are about 8 mm long and have all the characteristics of adults. This metamorphosis usually takes place about 32 to 35 days after hatching. These postlarvae then migrate back into freshwater. There are three different morphotypes of males. The first stage is called "small male" (SM); this smallest stage has short, nearly translucent claws. If conditions allow, small males grow and metamorphose into "orange claws" (OC), which have large orange claws on their second chelipeds, which may have a length of 0.8 to 1.4 their body size. OC males later may transform into the third and final stage, the "blue claw" (BC) males. These have blue claws, and their second chelipeds may become twice as long as their body.[3] Male M. rosenbergii have a strict hierarchy: the territorial BC males dominate the OCs, which in turn dominate the SMs. The presence of BC males inhibts the growth of SMs and delays the metamorphosis of OCs into BCs; an OC will keep growing until it is larger than the largest BC male in its neighbourhood before transforming. All three male stages are sexually active though, and females who have undergone their pre-mating molt will cooperate with any male to reproduce. BC males protect the female until their shell has hardened, OCs and SMs show no such behavior. Info Taken from Wikipedia.com Credits to Wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_prawn_farm Main