24 Shrimp Culture-Innovation
Live vannamei shrimp, from urban shrimp factories to global markets New scaleup Universal Aquaculture has begun to commercialise vertical high density vannamei shrimp farming using its Hybrid Biological Recirculation System™ (HBRS), with the first harvest in 2021.
The inaugural farm is in a 1400m2 warehouse on the sixth floor of a six- storey factory building located in Tuas on the eastern end of Singapore. Tanks are stacked 12m high.
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t all started in 2019, with a prototype of a vannamei shrimp farm with four tanks appearing on the fourth floor of a warehouse in Paya Lebar in Singapore. Soon, this expanded to over 300 tanks within a farm of 14,000ft2 (1,300 m2) Universal Aquaculture (UniAqua) officially started in April 2020 with a team of 11 members. There is an interesting story behind this team of aquaculture enthusiasts working to develop a closed aquaculture system suitable for land scarce Singapore. Serial entrepreneur Jeremy Ong, CEO and one of the founding members, recounted their journey. “I have always been investing in sustainability and started at an early age with vegetable farming. In 2015, a college friend Clifford, who is now our CFO and a few mainly dedicated aquaculturists, wanted to do ‘something spectacular in aquaculture’. Together we wanted to have a different take on how we can do aquaculture not only in Singapore but also globally.” The mission is to build the global food systems of tomorrow, using environmentally sound and sustainable food production methods. In urban Singapore where land is scarce, Ong reiterated that their concept was, “To build a system in the middle of the city state and serve the people within the city. We will not export or sell any of our products out of a 30km radius. This is how we started building this whole business. When we did our business modelling, we knew that we needed an indoor system where we can have total control and where we can reduce risks from inclement weather and disease pathogens. Additionally, in Singapore, where energy and labour costs are rather high, we need to be energy efficient and automate operations as much as possible.”
September/October 2021 AQUA Culture Asia Pacific
The prototype came into play just prior to Covid-19 but in the case of UniAqua it was just in time as in 2020, Singapore, which imports almost 16,800 tonnes annually of shrimp (live and chilled) from Malaysia, saw disruptions to imports. The Government fast tracked its program to have 30% of its nutritional needs by 2030 from 10%, with locally grown food. The ambition of UniAqua is to supply 30% of the live and chilled shrimp demand in Singapore by 2026. UniAqua has moved fast with a 1,300m2 farm on the sixth floor of a six-storey factory building in Tuas Link, on the eastern end of Singapore. Here the target production is 150-200kg of shrimp per day, depending on size at harvest.
Ideal water conditions with a HBRS
The heart of the indoor system is the proprietary and energy saving water treatment system which took 6 years of research. This is the Hybrid Biological Recirculation System™(HBRS) where the team could adjust water parameters and create ideal conditions to match requirements of each species while save up to 80-90% of water and energy. The concept is to mimic the natural environment of the animal with water of equal quality. “HBRS is groundbreaking using a lot of biological filtration. We do not clean the water totally, but just sufficient to meet the needs of the animals. Unlike, traditional recirculation aquaculture systems, we do not need those energy consuming systems like back wash, micro bubbles, ozone and UV etc. and yet we are able to sustain the water pH and bacteria levels at optimal levels for the shrimp. Of course, some mechanical filtration is still required.”
