Gold-Coast-Marine-Aquaculture

[Music plays CSIRO logo and text appears: We asked CSIRO]

Nick Moore: It was back in the '90s we realised that to be successful we needed to domesticate the black tiger prawn, in other words, breed them in captivity.

[Image changes to black tiger prawns in water]

Now we knew most of that, but we couldn't do it all on our own.

[Image changes to Nick Moore, Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture]

So we asked CSIRO to give us a hand and basically what they've come and helped us with is the health screening of them, and now, as we've got to the end of the whole road, the genetics.

[Image has changed to a man spooning something from a tin into an aquaculture pool]

We can now truly breed them in captivity very successfully and very commercially.

[Image has changed back to Nick]

Every year our prawns are improving.

[Image has changed to black tiger prawns in water] We've got a prawn that we consider to be as good as anyone in the world and that's been attested to recently when we've won the gold medals at the recent Royal Easter Show and have now been nominated for the Presidents Medal, which is the top six of all of the champions.

[Image has changed to black tiger prawns in water and then back to Nick]

The results that we're getting now from our domesticated stock is probably three times more than we'll get from any East Coast of the wild.

[Image changes to water tanks and then back to aquaculture pools, camera pans down to show prawns at the bottom of the tank]

But it's more than that, not only do they grow faster and eat less food, and obviously create a far better economic return for us, it's a matter of getting your animals into the ponds when you require them and that's priceless.

[Image has changed back to Nick]

The relationship with CSIRO has been very beneficial to the whole industry, we've got a situation now where we can guarantee to stock our ponds on the week, almost to the day that we require and that's something you can't do when you go to the wild. I think, going back, some years ago, we realised you'd need as many as 12 ducks to line up in a row and CSIRO's given us the last two ducks.

[Image changes to black tiger prawns in water]

They're great to work with, they're professional, but I think what stands them out, more than anything else, is they have true desire and a wish to succeed, the same as we do and when we succeed they get just a bigger kick as we do.

[Music plays and CSIRO logo appears with the text: Big ideas start here www.csiro.au]