The Secrets of Sea Cucumber Aquaculture: A Full Analysis of the Key Technical Points

——"Enhancing the Quality of the Sea Cucumber Industry and Promoting the Weihai Sea Cucumber Brand" Series Report No. 2

"Last autumn the purchase price of Weihai sea cucumber was about 160 yuan per kg; this autumn the price of pond-farmed sea cucumber is around 200 yuan per kg, and the price of sea cucumber raised in cofferdams and seabed bottom-sowing is 240 yuan to 300 yuan per kg, yet demand still exceeds supply." Speaking about the reasons for the current soaring price of sea cucumber, Dong Chongqiang, section chief of the Fisheries Section of the Municipal Ocean and Fisheries Bureau, said, "The main reason is still that sea cucumber consumption is gradually becoming popular, and market demand for sea cucumber products keeps growing, while at present Weihai fresh sea cucumber supply falls short of demand."

Rapidly growing consumer demand has brought about a sharp expansion of the sea cucumber aquaculture industry, making sea cucumber the fifth aquaculture wave after algae, shellfish, shrimp and fish.

　　Fresh Sea Cucumber Output Value of the Whole City Nearly 6 Billion Yuan This Year

"To farm high-quality natural sea cucumber, one must create a sea reef environment suitable for its growth," said Xie Liande, chairman of Wuling Deshengyuan Rare Seafood Aquaculture Co., Ltd. In early 2001, Xie Liande and relatives and friends jointly raised 10 million yuan and tried artificial reef construction, converting all 400 mu of sea area with state-confirmed rights entirely to three-dimensional aquaculture, with raft culture of red snail and sea urchin on the upper layer and sea cucumber on the bottom layer. In 2003, after tasting the generous returns brought by sea cucumber, Xie Liande expanded the scale of sea cucumber farming; at present his artificial-reef sea cucumber farming area reaches more than 3,000 mu, and "Deshengyuan" sea cucumber has been sold far away to more than ten provinces and cities nationwide, with an annual output value of nearly 10 million yuan.

In recent years, with an eye to adjusting the fishery industry structure, Weihai has accelerated the pace of rare seafood aquaculture, treating sea cucumber farming as a breakthrough point for industrial restructuring and for pulling the marine fishery economy up to a new level, so that the sea cucumber farming industry has risen rapidly.

At Tianwan Bay developed by the Haodangjia Group, the reporter saw that the sea surface here is divided into a grid pattern by a series of dams, using the difference between high and low tide to make seawater circulate naturally for three-dimensional aquaculture. Group chairman Tang Chuanqin said: "These 30,000 mu of sea surface yield 1 million kg of sea cucumber a year; at the current price of 200 yuan per kg, that is 200 million yuan!" On September 16 this year, the "Pond Ecological Mixed Culture Technology for Sea Cucumber and Jellyfish" undertaken by the Haodangjia Group successfully passed acceptance by the Provincial Ocean and Fisheries Department.

Rushan City explored mixed culture of sea cucumber and gracilaria, effectively purifying the aquaculture water body, eliminating the massive proliferation of pathogenic microorganisms caused by the accumulation of feces and residual bait during the farming process, and reducing the probability of sea cucumber disease outbreaks.

Starting in 2007, Huancui District Beihai Aquatic Products Company converted its original fish ponds into sea cucumber ponds; at present its sea cucumber pond farming area reaches 2,000 mu, and its artificial-reef farming area is nearly 400 mu.

Since the beginning of this year, Wendeng City has implemented the "Sea Cucumber Pond Standardized Renovation Project," and has so far renovated 15,000 mu of standardized sea cucumber ponds.

From traditional rocky-reef cofferdam farming, the industry has developed into pond farming, cofferdam farming, bottom-sowing enhancement, raft cage culture, industrial farming and many other methods; these attempts and explorations of new farming models and farming technologies have driven the sustainable development of the sea cucumber farming industry. In 2010, the city had nearly 3,000 sea cucumber enhancement and farming households, with a total farming area of more than 240,000 mu, a total standing stock of nearly 1 billion sea cucumbers, and a fresh sea cucumber output value of nearly 6 billion yuan.

　　Sea Cucumber Farming Requires Taking Preventive Measures

Sea cucumber farming is the intermediate link in the development of the entire sea cucumber industry; the level of farming and the quality of disease prevention directly affect the yield and quality of sea cucumber. Experts point out that in the face of the sea cucumber farming boom, one needs to keep a clear head and take preventive measures.

Tang Tingyao, a professor at the Ocean College of Shandong University at Weihai, told reporters that much social capital is now being invested in the sea cucumber industry, and because of a lack of professional knowledge and low management levels, blind production has resulted; this shows up in some farming households having excessively high farming density, not mastering water quality regulation techniques, and inadequate and untimely daily management and monitoring…… If these restrictive factors affecting the healthy growth of the sea cucumber industry are not resolved in time, they will certainly become a bottleneck for industrial development.

How to break this bottleneck? Relevant persons point out that although the Ministry of Agriculture has formulated technical specifications for sea cucumber farming, because publicity has been inadequate, farming households know very little about them, and there is great arbitrariness and blindness in the farming process. The urgent task is to intensify the publicity and implementation of farming technical specifications and standardize farming behavior. The reporter learned during interviews that, to implement the spirit of the citywide on-site observation meeting on the development of the sea cucumber industry, the Municipal Ocean and Fisheries Bureau has recently drawn up the "Regulations of Weihai City on Sea Cucumber Seedling Rearing and Farming (Discussion Draft)" and the "Measures for the Supervision, Inspection and Management of Sea Cucumber Production Enterprises (Discussion Draft)," which are being submitted to the relevant provincial departments for approval. Wang Yimin, former director of the Weihai Municipal Fisheries Research Institute, pointed out that sea cucumber farming households must strictly control the quality of parent sea cucumber and the use of drugs, appropriately adjust seedling release density according to sea area and bait conditions, do a good job in water quality testing, scientifically take in and discharge water, formulate technical operating specifications and strictly produce according to the specifications, and pay attention to observing the cleanliness of the pond bottom and the salinity of pond water during the flood season, among other issues.