The JIW Tilapia Cage Farm, owned by Mr. Fernando Algozo in Sampalok Lake, Philippines, adopted USSEC’s Low Volume High Density (LVHD) cage culture technology in his commercial farm after a series of seminar and farm visits.
USSEC's Philippines Technical Manager for Aquaculture, Levy Manalac, first introduced the tilapia LVHD Cage Culture technology through an in-house farm seminar attended by the owner and his staff. The seminar highlighted the importance of five components of a successful aquaculture: market, water, fry, feeds and management.
The seminar discussed the advantages of using high quality extruded floating feeds compared to sinking feeds, and the use of feed enclosures to prevent feeds from getting out of the cages. At the seminar, Manalac emphasized the importance of using of high quality ingredients such as U.S. soybean meal to produce high quality feeds. Manalac also underscored the importance of good site selection, smaller cage sizes, cage orientation and cage positioning for water quality management. The activity included follow-up farm visits to demonstrate the LVHD cage culture principles and satiation feeding management.
In a recent visit, Algozo changed from using the traditional 10m x 10m x 5m size cages to 2m x 2m x 2m cages placed in a 10m x 10m bamboo cage frame. The cages were also relocated  to an area with better water quality – far from other farms and nearer to the source of spring water supplying the lake. Algozo believes that the smaller cages suit his business because the tilapia buyers in their area buy only 400-600 kilos each harvest, which is the target kilos for the 2m x 2m x 2m cage at harvest. Per Algozo, his company is now comparing  a stocking density of 2,200 pieces to one of 1,600 pieces per cage to see which density will result in better production and survival rates.
JIW Tilapia cage farm is a demonstration cooperator for USSEC’s aquaculture program in the area. The farm is eager to try the entire USSEC LVHD cage culture technology and compare the use of formulated diets for tilapia with other commercial feeds in the market.