The Effect of Black Sands on Consciousness Control of Scalloped Spiny Lobster (Panulirus homarus)

Indonesia has advantage of large spiny lobster (Panulirus) resources and sold alive for export purposes. One of the challenges faced is finding simple handling technology for live lobsters using black sands. The aimed of this study is to develop handling techniques including anesthesia, packaging and transportation of live scalloped spiny lobster (P. homarus) with black sands. The first study stage was carried out to observe the process of stunning lobsters using a gradual temperature reduction technique using ice and sea water. The second study stage were anesthesia, packaging and transportation for 24 hours using experiments on different levels of use of black sands. These treatments included: without using black sands, using black sands smeared all over the lobster's body, using black sands covering half the body and using black sands covering the entire body when anesthetized, packaged and transported for 24 hours. Parameters observed included survival rate, body weight loss and bioenergy utilization. The third study stage of experiment was carried out to process of resuscitating lobsters and may return to live lobster products. Results showed lobster's physiological process so that it faints after 20 minutes the rearing water temperature is 13-15oC. Lobsters treated with black sands which covered half of the body showed optimal survival, low body weight loss and efficiency in bioenergy utilization. Process of resuscitating a lobster takes 3-5 minutes by removing black sands from the spiny lobster's body and dousing it with fresh sea water that lobster can quickly regain consciousness and come back as live seafood products.