In this issue:

Nursery rearing of silver barb Puntius goniotus. Artemia enrichment and biomasss production for larviculture. Seed production of mud crab Scylla serrata in India. Macrobrachium on the southwest coast of India. Fish wastes in urban and suburban markets of Kolkata: Problems and solutions. Groups of poor women farming carps in leased ponds, Bangladesh. Lymphocystis disease and diagnostic methods in China. Mesocosm technology advances grouper aquaculture in northern Australia.

In this issue:

Training workshop on molecular genetics. Outcomes of the 8th Technical Advisory Committee Meeting. Taking the 'grey' out of 'grey literature'. An introduction to the South Iran Aquaculture Research Center. Aquaclubs in India achieve good crops this year, with further challenges ahead. Rebuilding resilience of coastal populations and aquatic resources. Recent activities in STREAM. First international PCR training workshop completed. AusAID funds two aquatic animal health projects. Asia Regional Advisory Group continues to support aquatic animal disease management in the region. Indonesia accedes to the NACA Agreement. Governing Council 17 to set NACA Work Programme 2006-2010. Marine fish culture manuals now available in Thai. Aquaculture Rehabilitation Guide in Aceh, Indonesia. Boat building in the tsunami affected areas of NAD: Fishing vessel quality issues. Australasian Aquaculture 2006, 27 - 30 August, Adelaide. East Asian Seas Congress, 12-16 December 2006, China. Aquafeed Production Workshop, 8 March 2006, Thailand.

The Asia Regional Advisory Group on Aquatic Animal Health meets annually to discuss regional health issues including emerging disease threats. This report includes a review of regional disease status circa 2005, global and regional disease reporting arrangements, global issues and standards, progress in implementation of the the Regional Technical Guidelines on Health management for the Responsible Movement of Live Aquatic Animals, identification and designation of regional aquatic animal health resources and regional and international cooperation.

If the place where fish live is good and healthy, fish rarely die from diseases. If we stress fish by roughly handling them, by keeping too many together, or by not feeding them well, they may suffer from disease. Depending on the disease, we may see lots of fish die in a short time, small numbers of fish deaths every day, reduced growth, marks on the fish, or a change in the way they look or swim.

This presentation, delivered at the Sixth Symposium on Diseases in Asian Aquaculture (Sri Lanka, 2005), reviews the strategies adopted to promote a more sustainable approach to shrimp health management. It also presents and compares the experiences gathered to date, with the aim to identify an effective way forward for the sustainable development of the sector, and provides guidance on a way forward to implement better management practices with reference to small-scale producers.

This report, the 30th in the series, contains information about the aquatic animal health status of sixteen states in the Asia-Pacific region. The foreword discusses capacity building and harmonisation in aquatic animal health within ASEAN.

In this issue:

Small-scale pond culture in Bangladesh. Issues and challenges in community-based aquaculture. Aquaculture as an action programme building confidence and self-worth. Transforming policy recommendations into pro-poor service provision. Grow out of spotted Babylon to marketable size in polyculture with seabass. Influence of economic conditions and global shocks on grouper markets. Status of cobia hatchery technology in Vietnam. Organic shrimp raceway system. Macrobrachium rosenbergii in Vembanad Lake. Management of monogenean parasites.

This presentation provides an overview of Vietnamese experience on the implementation of better management Practices (BMPs) and good aquaculture practices (GAP) in shrimp aquaculture. Practices were implemented collectively by encouraging small-scale farmers to form groups that collaborate on issues such as screening seed for disease and improving water quality management. Improvements to crop outcomes were observed. The results presented include the profitability of BMP adopted ponds.

Recognising the importance of iridoviral disease, in terms of its potential to spread and cause economic loss, grouper iridoviral disease was included for listing in the quarterly aquatic animal disease (QAAD) list under any other diseases of importance effective for reporting from first quarter of 2003. This disease card is developed to provide information to national authorities and support the regional NACA/FAO/OIE QAAD reporting system.

This case study reviews shrimp aquaculture development in East Africa and the Middle East, as well as the problems and prospects for future development. Given that shrimp aquaculture development has not yet occurred on any significant scale, although increasing, it should be possible to learn the lessons from other parts of the world and apply them in these contexts. The countries in this report are: Egypt, Iran, Mozambique, Madagascar with some information on other countries in both regions.