Essential biosecurity tips for shrimp farming
22 6월 2025
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3 minutes
Biosecurity is aimed at preventing disease instead of curation. Biosecurity consists of several cumulative steps, which are taken to keep diseases away from a farm and to prevent the transmission of disease within an infected farm to neighboring farms or to other ponds within the infected farm. Below are some steps to consider when doing a shrimp farming cycle with a biosecurity mindset.
In general
- Use separate shoes for on-farm and off-farm to prevent external pathogens from entering your farm.
- Disinfect your boots and hands before and after entering the farm and each time you go from one pond to another within the farm.
- Allocate 1 set of tools per culture pond/tank to avoid cross-contamination in the farm.
- Do daily disinfection and cleaning of the tools. Use disinfection products that are efficient and environmentally friendly.
- Place crab fences and bird nets around the culture unit to prevent contamination from other animals.
- Minimize the number of visitors on a farm as they can bring in external pathogens. If they enter, make sure that they comply with the biosecurity measures.
Before stocking
- Treat your water intake before putting into ponds. Always have sufficient treated water storage in case of needed emergency water exchange
- Only stock PLs that are obtained from SPF / SPR (Specific Pathogen Free/ Resistant) accredited hatcheries.
- Do not stock the PLs if they don’t pass a stress test or if no information is available about disease screening.
During the production cycle
- Perform regular disease monitoring:
- Compare water quality data (e.g., pH, oxygen, salinity, alkalinity, temperature) between different ponds/tanks as deviations can give early indications of disease outbreaks.
- Check the shrimp for growth, health of intestine, hepatopancreas color, and faeces quality. Also check the vibrio count in your pond.
- Do not put sampled shrimp back into pond as they would have been stressed out during the sampling and could develop disease later.
For more questions regarding biosecurity of shrimp, please reach out to our experts.
Checklist biosecurity shrimp
Download our biosecurity checklist for shrimp
