• Broodstock: Only abalone exhibiting superior appearance and performance characteristics are selected as brood animals. Males and females are housed in a tightly regulated environment which allows for an intensive but safe spawning program. The entire fertilization process is controlled, allowing for selection of only the highest quality fertilized eggs.

• Larvae: Within hours of fertilisation, a free-swimming trochophore larva emerges from the egg membrane. These yolk-nourished larvae are housed in tanks supplied with highly filtered seawater, and are allowed to develop into competent veliger larvae over the next couple of days. The microscopic larvae are monitored on a daily basis, and once again only those larvae that exhibit suitable characteristics are selected to continue to the next rearing stage.

• Settlement: When veliger larvae are approximately 6 days old, their yolk reserves are no longer sufficient to sustain metabolic process. At this point, they are transferred from larvae tanks into settlement tanks, where they are presented with a bouquet of micro-algae grown on polycarbonate plates to serve as a food source. If the micro-algae species composition is satisfactory, these larvae will attach to the plates, lose the ability to swim, and metamorphose into perfect baby abalone called spat. Spat remain on these plates for the next 3 – 4 months, after which they would have grown so much so as to result in partial depletion of micro-algae. In order to sustain optimal health and growth, spat are anaesthetised, size sorted and transferred into the next rearing system.

• Weaning: Maintaining high numbers of spat AND adequate levels of micro-algae is difficult. At HIK, 3 – 5 mm spat are kept in special weaning tanks, where they are “weaned” off a natural diet of micro-algae onto a formulated diet called Abfeed tm. The new spat are nurtured by dedicated workers and quickly adapt to the new environment and diet. Under these optimal conditions spat rapidly grow to a length of approximately 10mm over the next 3 – 4 months. Spat are then big and robust enough to handle the more macro environment of grow-out.   

 

Grow-out

At HIK, abalone are grown to market size over a period of 36 – 45 months. Every available area of HIK’s 2.5ha property is utilised in order to maximise output and the farm currently boasts a total of 1500 tanks. Abalone are carefully tended in oyster net baskets suspended in tanks, and fed predominantly an artificial diet. HIK’s grow-out area currently supports over 5 million individual animals with a collective biomass of approximately 140 tonnes.

 

Process Optimisation

Optimal use of information across all aspects of the abalone farm is a core priority at HIK. Maintenance and analysis of accurate stock data is of utmost importance when developing and implementing weekly, monthly and annual production plans. HIK recognised this need many years ago, and the continual development & optimisation of our two custom-developed software programs (abalone stock management and abalone stock forecasting) is our highest priority apart from farming abalone. These programs allow for the collection and analysis of very large datasets (biological, technical, environmental), as well as the assimilation of output data into various stock growing and harvesting scenarios. This program has made a profound impact on how abalone are farmed at HIK, and gives us a significant edge on local and international competitors. Outputs from these programs are integrated with other information sources to calculate various farm productivity and efficiency indicators.

HIK’s current production output ranges between 125 – 130 tonnes per annum. We have shifted our stock management strategy in order to increase this output to 160 – 170 tonnes by then end of 1012. We believe that the synergy and team-spirit that permeate our organisation will contribute significantly toward achieving this goal.