CONTINUOUS MASS PRODUCTION OF SEA CUCUMBERS USING CREATIVE AQUACULTURE TECHNIQUES

THIS PROJECT IS TO DETERMINE IF CREATIVE AQUACULTURE TECHNIQUES CAN BE APPLIED TO CULTIVATE SEA CUCUMBERS ON A COMMERCIAL SCALE. THREE MAJOR EXPERIMENTS WILL TEST THE NEWTECHNIQUES DESIGNED FOR COMMERCIAL APPLICATION. THE OBJECTIVES ARE: 1) TO INCREASE REPRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY AND DEVELOP ASSOCIATED METHODOLOGIES IN SEA CUCUMBER CULTIVATION; 2) TO TEST HATCHERY SYSTEM DESIGN AND TECHNIQUES IN SETTLEMENT INDUCEMENT AND SUBSTRATE PREFERENCE; AND 3) TO DEVELOP AN EFFICIENT GROW OUT SYSTEM FOR COMMERCIAL APPLICATION. BROODSTOCK, HATCHERY, AND NURSERY TANKS WILL BE DESIGNED AND CONSTRUCTED FOR USE IN THESE EXPERIMENTS. THE CHOSEN SITE AT KEAHOLE PROVIDES EXCELLENT CONDITIONS FOR POTENTIAL YEAR ROUND PRODUCTION OF SEA CUCUMBERS. ROYAL HAWAIIAN SEA FARMS FACILITIES ALLOW FOR EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE RESEARCH WITH CAPABILITIES FOR COMMERCIAL APPLICATION.