FRI, COA, Taiwan ::> Tungkang Biotechnology Research Center

			September 1968	established as the Tungkang Shrimp Culture Center under the Tainan Branch of the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute (TFRI).
			July 1970	reorganized as the Tungkang Marine Larval Production Center directly under TFRI.
			January 1971	renamed as the Tungkang Marine Laboratory under TFRI.
			July 1998	renamed as the Tungkang Marine Laboratory under TFRI.
			May 2002	integrated to the Fisheries Research Institute (FRI) as Biotechnology Division, Fisheries Research Institute.
			September 2006	Renamed as Tungkang Biotechnology Research Center, Fisheries Research Institute.

			Development of techniques of selective breeding, propagation and culture of aquatic organisms.
			Research on environmental control and design of breeding and culture system for aquatic organisms.
			Research on live and artificial feeds for aquatic organisms.
			Studies on aquatic disease prevention, control and chemical surveillance.
			Studies on collection, conservation and utilization of aquatic genetic resources.
			Information exchange and extension of aquaculture and biotechnology techniques of aquatic organisms.

Study on offshore cage culture techniques

The research is focused on the selective breeding, high-quality fry production, nursery, transportation, high-efficiency feed, vaccine, automatic system and food procession of cage-cultured species, such as cobia and grouper. Key point techniques are hoped to exploit with the relative experts in domestic research institute in order to enhance the culture efficiency and international competition.


Selective breed cobia fry	Selected cobia brooder with body weight of 40 kg

Fry of king grouper, Epinephelus lanceoratus	The organic matter, ammonia and bacteria in aquacultural water can be removed by photocatalyst (titanium dioxide)

Study on the propagation and culture techniques of migratory pelagic fishes

To improve the fishing and transportation techniques of wild juvenile of yellowfin tuna in order to establish the broodstock management and artificial propagation in sea cage and pond. Thus, the culture industry and restoration of tuna can be promoted.





The body weight of 20 kg of yellowfin tuna can be achieved through one-year culture in pond from body weight of 1.4 kg.

Establishing Nuclear Breeding Center and Developing Biosecure Culture System for SPF Penaeid Shrimps

Monitoring viral diseases with PCR techniques in each growing stages to ensure successful maintenance of SPF Shrimp stock in nuclear breeding center to produce shrimp spawners to supply shrimp hatcheries to improve gene pool and maintain SPF state.

Importing SPF penaeid broodstock with superior genetic characteristics.

Establishing selective breeding programs on penaeid shrimps to produce superior strains with high performances in reproduction and growth, and resistant in diseases and stress through traditional breeding method and advance molecular marker.

Developing effective and economic feasible biosecure system to ensure high survival during culture period.

Establishing zero or limited exchange culture system for penaeid shrimps.

Developing a biosecure culture system for penaeid shrimps with high density and high yield.

Live foods culture collection and application

Larviculture business is an important item of Taiwan sustainable aquaculture. Live foods are necessary for larval rearing of finfish and shellfish. The culture collection center of live foods has been build up since 1990. Its purpose is to collect and preserve the valuable natural resources of live foods and make them readily available for applications in the areas of industry, mariculture, education as well as basic research. At present, 78 strains of microalgae, 9 strains of rotifers, one species of cladocera and 3 species of copepods are kept as stock cultures.


Stock culture of Nannochloropsis on agar slants	Tetraselmis chui

Chaetoceros muelleri	Isochrysis galbana

Skeletonema costatum	Brachionus rotundiformis

Apocyclops royi	Acartia southwelli

Pseudodiaptomus annandalei

Study on the culture and use of algae as live foods in aquaculture, functional food or energy biomass resources

Microalgae with EPA and/or DHA are valuable live foods for fish and shellfish larvae to improve their growth and survival. In addition, microscopic and macroscopic algae are rich of protein and the other components like pigments, polysaccharide, vitamins, water soluble fibers and minerals, could be developed as functional food, pharmaceutics, bio-diesel, or probe to detect the evaporable toxic solvent. The suitable algae are isolated and hold as culture collection, available production systems are set up and transferred to the industry through pioneering researches.

To evaluate the potential of seaweed biomass as bio-ethanol, research activities focus on survey of natural seaweed resources, available way for mariculture to provide the biomass resources, and the process methods for ethanol production.


Mass culture of Isochrysis in 100 L conical tanks

Gracilaria tenuistipitata cultured in pond	Natural seaweed ( Gracilaria sp.) resource

Available uses the aqua-feed industry and core laboratory for research of feed nutrition

To review the nutrition requirement and utilization of fish and shrimp by nutrition and physiology, and furthermore, to improve the feed formula and production process to decrease the cost of feed production and upgrade the feed efficiency and the quality of fish meat.

Development special artificial diets for grow-out and broodstock of important species and produce safety and high quality aquatic food.

Maintaining the accreditation feed inspection laboratory of Taiwan Accreditation Foundation (TAF) and establish the online quick analysis method to inspect the chemical composition of feed and fish body.


Twin scroll extruder	Twin scroll extruder

The safety and hygiene of cooked aquatic diets	The artificial feed products

The floating feed for cobia

Multiresidue screening techniques for the drugs banned and used in the aquatic animals in seafood

A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in electrospray ionization and multiple reaction monitoring modes was applied to develop a multiresidue screening method, allowing for the same reversed phase separation condition by the high performance liquid chromatography and quantitation at various retention time by LC-MS/MS under same monitoring parameters except cone voltage and collision energy, of drugs including nitrofurans, diaminopyrimidines, sulfonamides, quinolones, dyes, chloramphenicol derivatives, penicillins, tetracyclines and macrolides antibiotics in seafood.


The high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Development of vaccine, herb and probiotic bacteria for larval aquaculture and diseases control

Establishment and development of a technical system to evaluate the efficacy of aquatic vaccine, including the Photobacterium damsela subsp piscicida, Streptococcus iniae, vibriosis of cobia and nervous necrosis virus, iridovirus of grouper, to improve the effect of vaccine and enhance the protection of aquaculture fish and expect that increase the survival rate of the larvae and adult fish.

Selection of the modern herbal medicine against pathogens from the aquatic animals and for the diseases control.

Using probiotic bacteria such as phytosynthetic bacteria (PSB), the genus Bacillus, Nitrobacter and Nitrosomonas strains in aquaculture to improve water quality for preventing and controlling pathogenic bacteria, and the addition of lactic acid bacteria with balanced feed formula to promote the feed efficiency and achieve better growth as well as enhance the immune response of the cultured animal.


Injection of the Photobacterium damsela subsp piscicida vaccine on cobia


The modern herbal solution	The inhibition zone of the modern herb against bacterial pathogen

The inhibition of Bacillus subtilis cell on the pathogenic bacteria, Vibrio parahaemolyticus

Breeding, culture techniques and systems of important aquatic species are well established in long-term research and development by the researchers in this center. Introduction and application of modem biotechnology to aquatic research will be strengthened to make more progress and prosperous in aquaculture biotechnology.