This report describes the facilities and documents the procedures for the operation of a “backyard” hatchery for Penaeid prawns, put up for demonstration and training purposes in Pitipana, Sri Lanka. It concludes that the technology demonstrated is appropriate and that the aims set have been reached; it also identifies the constraints that should be lifted if this hatchery is to become a permanent training facility of the Coastal Aquaculture Research Station at Pitipana. The hatchery was one of the components of a project aimed at developing a small-scale prawn culture region.

The project undertakes trials of prawn culture in pens in the lagoons of Koggala, Negombo and Puttalam. Under the terms of this project, the Ministry of Fisheries, Sri Lanka, renovated and adapted facilities already existing for shrimp breeding, while BOBP contributed expertise, provided some imported equipment and met running costs.

This report was compiled by BOB P’s D Reyntjens (Aquaculturist Associate Professional Officer) and is based on the reports of the consultant, Dr K. H. Mohammed, the records maintained at the hatchery, and also on personal observations made in the last quarter of 1985. Mr Samaranayake, Assistant Director of Inland Fisheries and project leader, other team members and Mr. Reyntjens’s colleagues, Mr J. A Janssen and Mr P. Funegaard, also contributed to the project.

This paper, and the project it describes, form part of the activities of the small-scale fisheries project of the Bay of Bengal Programme (BOBP) funded by SIDA (Swedish International Development Authority) and executed by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

The project seeks to develop, demonstrate and promote technologies and methodologies to improve the conditions of small-scale fisherfolk. The project covers five countries in the region — Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.