It is found in the Indo-West Pacific from eastern and south-eastern Africa, through India, Malaysia and Indonesia to southern China and northern Australia.
The Indian prawn is used for human consumption and is the subject of a sea fishery, particularly in China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.
It is also the subject of an aquaculture industry, the main countries involved in this being Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Iran and India.
For this, wild seed is collected or young shrimps are reared in hatcheries and kept in ponds as they grow.
The ponds may be either extensive with reliance on natural foods, with rice paddy fields being used in India after the monsoon period, or semi-intensive or intensive, with controlled feeding.
After hatching, free-swimming nauplii are obtained, which further passes through protozoea, mysis and then to postlarval stage, which resembles the adult prawn.
The postlarvae migrate to the estuaries, feed and grow until they attain a length of 110–120 mm, and these sub adults return to the sea and get recruited into fishery.
China and four other Asian countries, including India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, together account for 55% of the capture fisheries.
[5] Currently F. indicus is mainly cultured in Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Islamic Republic of Iran and India.
Although the Indian prawn itself is not threatened, the methods used to capture it result in a large amount of bycatch, which includes endangered species such as sea turtles.
[10] However it is expensive to raise spawners in captivity and ablated shrimps result in less hardy fry with low survival rate.
[13] The protozoea stage is supplied with a mixed culture of diatoms dominated by Chaetoceros spp.
The best algal density promoting highest survival, growth and fastest larval development is around 60–70 cells per μL.
Post larval rearing can be continued in the same tank and post-larvae (PL) are fed with minced mussel meat, mantis shrimp powder or variety of other fresh feeds of particle size 200–1000 μm till they reach PL-20 (day 20 of post-larva).
This is the traditional system of shrimp farming which involves stocking of the wild seed with incoming tidal water is practiced in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam.
Compared with traditional type of management, semi-intensive production are on a relatively smaller scale with 0.2–2 hectare ponds and also deeper 1.0–1.5 m.[11] Stock densities can range from 20–25 PL/m2 using hatchery derived seeds for monoculture.
[16] In traditional farming harvesting is done by fitting conical nets on the sluice gates and opening them during low tide.
However, as F. indicus is more easily bred and reared, the relative profit gained by F.indicus may be higher per input than it seems from the above figures.