PRELIMINARY STUDIES OF SELECTED ENVIRONMENTAL 

 AND NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 

 CULTURE OF PENAEID SHRIMP' 



Lowell V. Sick, James W. Andrews, and David B. White" 



ABSTRACT 



Types of substrate, type of aeration, and stocking density were compared as prerequisities for high-den- 

 sity culture studies with penaeid shrimps. Neither sand-shell substrate nor brick subdivisions of cul- 

 ture tank bottoms produced significantly higher survival rates than bare fiber glass tanks. Forced air 

 supplied via airstones proved to be a more suitable form of aeration than did physical agitation of the 

 water column in culture tanks by high-pressure nozzles. Survival rates of 80 to 90% were achieved 

 when biomass densities did not exceed 40 g/m^. 



Semipurified pelleted diets (i.e., containing defined chemical ingredients plus one or more natural 

 products) having a complement of nutrients including minerals and vitamins, various ratios of shrimp 

 to fish meal, protein hydrolysates, and such diets fed at three percentages of total biomass daily 

 were compared for their ability to produce increases in growth. Diets without fish or shrimp meal 

 sustained biomass while those diets having the highest proportion of shrimp to fish meal in addition to added 

 vitamins produced over 60% increase in total biomass over a 3-month period. Animals fed a combina- 

 tion of yeast, soy, and casein hydrolysates increased 39% in biomass over the same period of time while 

 those fed each of the above hydrolysates during the 3-month period separately showed only an average 

 of 18% increase in weight. Feeding shrimp with a fish-shrimp base with added vitamins at a rate of 

 15% daily of the total biomass produced a 164% increase in weight with 95 to 100% survival during the 

 3-month period. Using semipurified pelleted diets, a food conversion ratio of 5.5 was obtained. 



Establishing selected preliminary environmental and nutritional requirements for penaeid shrimp re- 

 sulted in the successful and reproducible production of major biomass increases with relatively high sur- 

 vival rates and low food conversion ratios. 



The harvest of commercial shrimp suffers great 

 seasonal variability and has failed to keep pace 

 with ever-increasing domestic and export de- 

 mands (Surdi and Whitaker, 1971). In order 

 to supplement the natural harvest and provide a 

 year-round supply of shrimp, several attempts 

 have been made to culture shrimp in natural 

 ponds, restricted portions of bays and estuaries, 

 and laboratory tanks. In general, these efforts 

 have had limited success and have explicitly il- 

 lustrated the need for more accurately defining 

 the nutritional and environmental requirements 



^ This work is a result of research sponsored by NOAA 

 Office of Sea Grant, U.S. Department of Commerce, 

 under Grant #GH-73. 



^ Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, 55 West Bluff 

 Road, Savannah, GA 31406. 



necessary for culturing these species. Although 

 pond culture has produced annual crops of 

 shrimps (Villadolid and Villaluz, 1951; Lunz, 

 1967; Wheeler, 1967; Broom, 1969; Moore and 

 Elan, 1970') , production has been minimal and 

 highly variable. Attempts to obtain commercial 

 quantities of shrimp by stocking enclosed por- 

 tions of estuaries have to date not yielded pro- 

 duction results (American Fish Farmer & World 

 Aquaculture News, 1970) . During recent labora- 

 tory studies, Subrahmanyam and Oppenheimer 

 (1969) were able to maintain shrimp in labora- 

 tory tanks using a pelleted diet consisting of fish 

 meal, stickwater, and vitamins. However, the 



Manuscript accepted July 1971. 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 1, 1972. 



" Moore, W. R., and L. L. Elan. 1970. Salt water pond 

 research. Tex. Parks Wildl. Dep., Austin. (Processed.) 



101 



