The Marine Aquaculture Centre (MAC) of the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA), located on St John's Island in the open southern waters of Singapore, was set up to develop and harness technology to facilitate the development and expansion of large-scale hatchery and fish farming production in Singapore and the region.
This Centre aims to:
- Promote the reliable supply of a variety of tropical food fish to local consumers as well as establish benchmarks on price and quality of fish in our market;
- Help stabilise Singapore's fish supply and reduce dependence on food fish caught from the seas since this is not sustainable in the long term;
- To culture fish using good quality and healthy fry which can be grown to market size using good and safe farming practices e.g. minimal use of antibiotics and other drugs
MAC undertakes research and development in tropical marine aquaculture. Its programmes focus on fish reproduction, large-scale hatchery and fish farming technology development. To support these activities, MAC also addresses other related areas such as fish nutrition and feeding, fish health, the establishment of good aquaculture practices, monitoring of the fish farming environment and seawater re-use. Future breeding programmes will be on selective breeding so that fish are of better quality, in terms of faster growth or disease resistant.
MAC's outputs will facilitate marine aquaculture development and expansion in Singapore and the region. Cultured fry are in short supply and this is one of the bottlenecks to this development. MAC's pioneering work is therefore aimed at promoting a long-term sustainable supply of a wide variety of tropical food fish at affordable prices for consumers in Singapore.
MAC's efforts are also aimed at promoting large-scale deep netcage fish farming of tropical food fish species.
MAC is undertaking R&D in the following areas to develop large-scale hatchery technology:
- Culture systems and operations for large-scale commercial production of fry at all the hatchery stages, namely spawning, egg collection and hatching, live larval feed production, larviculture, weaning, nursery
- Seawater re-use technology
- Developing optimal hatchery conditions and good hatchery practices
- Live fish transportation methods
- Hatchery fish health, feed and nutritional requirements
- New/novel species - to study the potential of high-value fish species for hatchery technology development
Other hatchery-related technologies which will also have to be concurrently researched and developed by MAC are:
- Fish reproduction technology- to close the reproductive cycles of key marine food fish species
- Selective breeding - to improve brooder fish quality
- Live fish larval food production - to improve the nutritional quality of live larval food, develop and improve culture technique for common live food micro-organisms such as algae and rotifers, and to identify other alternative live food
- Inert larval feed supplements - to develop formulated larval feeds that can supplement or even eventually replace expensive live larval food
- In fish biotechnology and other upstream molecular applications e.g. genetic selection to facilitate fish breeding, development of fish vaccines and diagnostic kits.
MAC's efforts are also aimed at promoting large-scale deep netcage fish farming of tropical food fish species, such as the Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer), trevallys (Caranx spp), cobia (or black kingfish, Rachycentron canadum), snappers (Lutjanus spp), and pompano (Trachinotus blochii). MAC will maximize production rates, develop feeding strategies and optimize feed utilization for effective production of these tropical marine food fish.
A deep netcage fish farm has a complex mooring system that is anchored to the sea bed. Such a mooring system can withstand the swift currents that could prevail in open waters. Heavy duty high density polyethylene (HDPE) floating collars of 12.5 metres or more in diameter, and smaller squares are fitted into the grids of the mooring system and cage nets with a depth of 6 to more than 8 metres are secured to these frames. The deep cages allow for the stocking of more fish per square metre compared to the more traditional shallow coastal cages. The deep netcage fish farm is operated by skilled workers, with the use of mechanization and automation wherever possible, for example, automatic fish feeding and counting, and mechanized harvesting.
Marine Aquaculture Centre
Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority
(Mailing Address)
5 Maxwell Road #01-01
Tower Block, MND Complex
Singapore 069110
For enquiries on MAC and its services, please contact AVA's Aquaculture Services Centre. For more information, click here.
For the location map, please click here.
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