What is the function and effect of seahorse? Seahorses can't increase the efficiency of aquaculture in Taiwan.

As a high economic value aquatic product, seahorse is not only ornamental, but also a valuable traditional Chinese medicine. Recently, seahorse has been studied to provide multiple conditioning and tonifying effects, and it is expected to be used in medical care, makeup, health food and other areas in the future. Make the seahorse more precious.

However, with the climate change, the annual catch of seahorses is decreasing sharply, and the market is in short supply. in order to increase the production of seahorses, the Ocean University has developed relevant breeding techniques through subsidies from science and technology programs. and try to seek diversified use and implementation of industrial applications, now initially successful, not only can reduce the impact of wild seahorses being caught, in line with international trade norms, but also through cooperation with industry. Appreciation of the added value of Taiwan's aquatic products.

The seahorse, known as "Southern Ginseng", has been a valuable medicinal material since ancient times, and it has a wide range of uses and a large market. for a long time, the market is in short supply.

The failure of mass production leads to the shortage of   in the market.

In recent years, with the physiologically active substances and conditioning efficiency of hippocampus, which have been tested and confirmed by scientific analysis, hippocampus has become a multi-use object of aquatic organisms and aquaculture, but because the global trade has listed the hippocampus as a precious and rare object of protection, in order to supply commercial circulation, in addition to artificial reproduction to the second generation (F2), it is also necessary to obtain relevant supporting documents during trade circulation. All kinds of restrictions, on the contrary, set up the threshold and guarantee, and also become the main consideration and driving force for the development of industry investment in breeding and breeding technology.

As a matter of fact, Taiwan has made considerable progress in the field of seahorse breeding technology, but due to the problems of feeding and manpower consumption in the past, the culture cost is too high, and seahorses mainly grow in natural sea areas with a better environment. Once the water quality is poor, or the temperature conditions are wrong, it is easy to fail breeding, resulting in losses, so the production of artificial seahorses is still small, unable to carry out commercial mass production. Therefore, stable production and continuous supply have become a major challenge to the development of the industry.

Innovative Hippocampal Propagation and breeding Planning   Comprehensive consideration from production to Marketing

In the face of the high economic output value of seahorses in the market, at present, with the support of the Council of Agriculture and the guidance of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the seahorse culture technology developed by the Culture Department of Ocean University, in terms of production direction, mode, commodity form and even aiming at the market, put forward a relatively complete and innovative plan.

Huang Zhiyi, an associate professor in the Department of Aquaculture at Taiwan Ocean University, said, "in addition to specifically improving the efficiency of reproduction and breeding, expanding production and continuing production, at the same time, it also aims at the multiple utilization of traditional medicine, ornamental aquarium, biomedical health care, and cultural and creative technology, that is to say, whether it is big, small, alive, dead, or even beautiful and ugly, it can make the seahorse give full play to its value. Make the most perfect and specific use of development and value-added marketing. " In other words, in addition to mass production, the development of safety control and the multi-use value of seahorses, such as the development of body color regulation technology, the enhancement of the commodity value of the aquarium market, or the analysis of medicinal seahorses, the guidance and promotion of drug-free culture techniques, and even the construction and maintenance of the original bank of commercial seahorses has become the focus of this plan.

Intelligent Monitoring   successfully creates an artificial breeding Environment

The cultivation of seahorses is not easy, and besides being picky about food, the aquaculture department of Ocean University cooperates with Tongrun, which is based on intelligent water quality monitoring, to integrate the information of aquaculture water with cloud platform and other peripheral devices through Tongrun's water quality monitoring instrument (OCTET), so as to provide aquaculture users with a more efficient aquaculture water quality monitoring system.

"this monitor can measure a variety of water quality parameters at the same time, upload the cloud database at any time, and perform various functions such as monitoring, recording, analysis, feedback and warning, so that users can easily view the monitoring data from mobile phones and computers. There are corresponding prevention and control suggestions to improve the survival rate." GE Shihao, CEO of Tong run Co., Ltd., who has been deeply cultivated in the field of "testing" for a long time, shared, "through the technology system, reports and data output every day are stored in the cloud backstage, which has not only increased the hippocampal reproduction rate from 10% to 50%, and then successfully established the SOP, it will also be able to assemble the whole plant output in the future, and this complete system will be applied to other high-economy aquatic products. Of course, we hope that the future technology can be improved, and even the fresh seahorses will be sent directly to the market. "

When science and technology are combined with creativity, industry-university cooperation not only transforms an old factory area into a seahorse greenhouse culture pond, but also begins to be successfully exported to Europe and the United States, Hong Kong and mainland markets. At present, it has also achieved the goal of the first phase of the plan to cultivate more than 15000 seahorse fry, and the plan has entered the second phase ahead of schedule.

Create more possibilities for Taiwan's aquaculture industry

Climate change has brought great challenges to the global fishing environment, and because the global catch has reached the fishing limit year by year, aquaculture fisheries have become more and more important in recent years. Huang Zhiyi and Kashihao both said that, "through the combination, cultivation or selection of parents in the process of artificial cultivation, under the premise of animal welfare, we can create strains or individuals with unique appreciation value, in addition to enriching the composition of breeding objects." It can also activate the sustained development of the industry, and more importantly, if the power of science and technology can be properly used, the existing bottlenecks can not only be solved, but also promote industrial upgrading as a result of the improvement of efficiency. "

In any case, the importance of breeding technology to the ornamental aquarium industry does not only lie in the accumulation of quantity, or simply meeting the needs of the consumer market, but more importantly, it also plays an important role in species, environment, and ecological conservation. I believe that in the future, with the cooperation of industry and learning and the blessing of science and technology, it will be able to develop more different possibilities for Taiwan's aquaculture industry.

Remarks: the industry-university cooperation relationship between Professor Huang Zhixiang and Tong run Co., Ltd. was terminated at the end of October 2018.

Related information

For more details on the R & D results of this project, please contact Mr. he of Agricultural Science and Technology Research Institute, a legal person of the consortium, Tel: 03-5185049, email: 1072086@mail.atri.org.tw