Alex Chin-Chiu Lin
Chief Scientist
Aquaculture Technologies Asia Ltd
Taiwan
Alex is Chief Scientist at Aquaculture Technologies Asia Ltd, based in Taiwan, since 2016. His work focuses on grouper farming, from hatchery to markets, RAS design, improvement of feed performance, health and pond management. He is also General Manager at Thetis Corp. where he provides consultancy services for grouper and shrimp farming in Taiwan, RAS systems and on functional additives.
In commercial scale grouper production, Alex has established the standard protocols for grouper larvae rearing in RAS and the R&D platform for improvement of the system performance (density, deformity, uniformity) and adaptation for new species. He has incorporated biosecurity and health management practices to produce specific pathogen resistance grouper fingerlings. In fish oral vaccine delivery via bioencapsulated live feed, he has evaluated the efficacy of a NNV oral vaccine.
Alex has a Bachelor’s degree in Plant Pathology from the National Chung-Hsing University, and a Master’s in Biotechnology from the National Cheng-Kung University. Alex is pursuing his PhD at the National Cheng-Kung University.
| Speaker | FISH TALK: Fish Farmers X Technology |
| Presentation | Grouper Aquaculture: With Emphasis on Production RAS |
Abstract
In Asia, the grouper which includes the genus Epinephelus spp. and Plectropomus spp., is one of the most crucial high value marine fish aquaculture industries in Southeast Asia, because of its favourable taste, good feed conversion ratio and market prices. Although currently, most of the production comes from outdoor ponds, the efforts to adapt and grow different grouper species in recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS) have been explored for the past two decades, but the industry still struggles with: (1) fingerling supply; (2) species-specific system design; and (3) production management.
Fingerling quality is the most definite principle of a grouper RAS project. Strategically and strictly stocking healthy and certified, specific pathogen free (SPF) fingerlings is key to a successful project. By greatly reducing the biological uncertainties, the optimization process will correctly be aimed and facilitated. The second key point for grouper RAS development is species-specific configuration. It will require some obligate flexible system design at the beginning phase, to ensure the tweaking abilities of a system.