Tiger shrimp in the Caribbean

Penaeus monodon, or Tiger shrimp, endemic to SE Asia, and the Indian Ocean all the way to Madagascar and East Africa.
But these guys are now native to Belize. It's believed that they were introduced in the mid 1980s to a farm in Nicaragua. They have since spread to the Gulf of Mexico and are being caught in trawlers there. And as far south as Brazil. They seem to be healthy and clean of new disease as we're not seeing anything affecting our white shrimp in the same ponds.
One farm down near Big Creek caught the large one in the picture. The white shrimp is Penaeus vannamei, endemic to the Pacific coast from Mexico down to Peru. This is the shrimp that most farms are now producing world wide.
As you can see though, the tiger is about five times bigger. They grow up to 3 grams per week where the vannamei grow about 1.5 grams.
The other one is only about 3 grams in weight but we caught it in our ponds here. He's a recent entry to the farm probably due to the rainy season starting which results in plankton production, which the larvae need to feed on in the wild. We then sucked him into our pumps and into the farm.
Jake and I are in the process of making a Philippines style fry catching net, known affectionately as "bulldozers" in Iloilo where Jake was born, to catch the smaller tiger fry along our beach here.
We're hoping to catch 50-....500 or so and grow them to broodstock. This is pretty exciting for us because the value of big monodon (40 grams plus) is about three times what we sell 12 gram white shrimp for.
But all this damn research and development IS cutting into my water time and spearing.

In the Philippines we could get them from the wild. 2 to a pound.

Dude george,
It is nice to take advantage of an invasive species.
We have the full facilities here at this shrimp farm to raise the shrimp to broodstock size and rear the larvae. I have 12 years of experience managing tiger shrimp hatcheries in the Philippines and Malaysia.

They have been replaced by Pacific Whites as the preferred farmed shrimp. White shrimp carry a serious virus called Taura, but you can genetically select survivors and get virus resistant populations that won't die.
Monodon carries another nasty virus called White Spot but it's an RNA virus that you can't breed resistance to. Fortunately,, the ones here in the Caribbean came in from some clean stocks from Asia. Probably back in the early 80s.
I have three now. haha. Hopefully 2 females and 1 male. But I'll get more.

And now I have babies. It's happening. haha. I really have a fun job sometimes.

The first batch is post larvae already. 9 days old. We had another spawn yesterday. I'll have about 5000 or so to grow on to a breeding program.

Here's pics of the ones we got in our ponds last year. The small one in the top picture is a Pacific White, which we grow on the farm. It's also the preferred shrimp grown worldwide. These two shrimp are about the same age. The tiger is huge. They grow fast.
Some were big, and some were small. All have grown up and a few are now mating and spawning. This hasn't been done very often. Tiger shrimp broodstock are historically taken from the wild, spawned once and eaten or released. They don't breed readily in captivity. Some do artificial insemination but it's labor intensive and costly.
I'm going to build a domesticated line that DOES breed. The offspring of these will have a higher number of natural spawners. This same process happened with the white shrimp we grow about 25 years ago.
I have some now that are about 9 mm long. Post larvae day 4. And another 5000 or so Zoea 3 stage. I'll have enough to fill up a breeding house in about 8 months. Patience.
All American Monodon. haha. I love my job.

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All American Monodon. How's that for a brand name? haha. I have never had them breed in captivity before. These are doing it naturally now. We're getting small spawns a couple times per week. I'm not tagging but based on the time frame I'm sure that at least 4 females are breeding. We need the genetic diversity of about 16 shrimp.
This one is 19 days old, ready to move from hatchery to ponds. This is pretty much what they look like when they would catch them from the wild in the Philippines and stock them on ponds....way back in the 1980s. He's about 12 mm long.
It used to take 30 days to get that big when hatcheries first started. This one grew a LOT faster than that.

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