Ulang is a species of freshwater prawn in the Philippines. Its scientific name is Macrobrachium rosenbergii, and it is also known as the “giant freshwater prawn”. It can be found in many rivers across the country.
In 2013, Gabriel Paraiso, a car repair shop owner in Malvar, Batangas, and his employees were camping on the shores of Taal Lake in the town of Balete, when they noticed dead fish and lots of Acetes shrimp washed ashore. Among the washed fish and shrimps were giant freshwater prawns. Many were dead but some were still alive. Gabriel decided to keep the live ones in a drum when they returned to his shop but after a few days, the shrimp died.
Curious about the giant freshwater prawn, Gabriel decided to do some research online and found out that the government is breeding the shrimp in Binangon, Rizal. A couple of weeks later, Gabriel received 500 fries from the said hatchery.
Gabriel started growing the fries in a plastic drum. The first batch was a disaster as only around 20 pieces out of 500 reached the adult stage, however, he did not lose hope. In five to six months of growing, he learned a lot, so he decided to order another batch and redesign his set-up.
Instead of positioning the drum vertically, he built an aquaponic system with plastic drums as fish tanks positioned horizontally. He used four drums instead of the original one so the fries had more space to roam.
Gabriel used a sinking fish pellet to feed his giant freshwater prawn and since it’s an aquaponic system with circulating water, the water was far cleaner than his first set-up.
Although the prawns had larger space to roam, cannibalism was still unavoidable but the result after 5 months was far better than the first try. Some prawns grew to almost 100 grams but most weighed between 50 to 80 grams. Gabriel harvested 13 kilograms of freshwater prawns from his four tanks with 20% mortality.
Gabriel’s experiment proved to be successful so he focused more on expanding his small business venture.
In 2017, he closed his car repair business after his landlord sold the land. He returned to his hometown in Famy, Laguna, and started building concrete ponds.
Before the Coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Gabrie’s pond was producing at least 700 kilograms of freshwater prawn every six months giving him around P315,000 in revenue. When the pandemic hit, he added native chicken farming into his farming business venture as heritage chicken farming was a big deal during the lockdown period.
By December 2023, Gabriel, a licensed mechanical engineer, had been making at least P250,000 per month in freshwater prawns, eggs, and native chicken.
When asked if he wanted to work as an engineer again, Gabriel said “I would not spend going to school for five years and start this business immediately out of high school”.