The most promising food prepared in the 

 laboratory is a gelatin-bound diet of fish pro- 

 tein concentrate, homogenized clams, and 

 vitamins. The shrimp reacted to this food as 

 when they were fed marine worms. The shrimp 

 moved rapidly about the tank probing the 

 bottom with their first three walking legs. The 

 shrimp grew little, but we believe that with 

 more experiments with other combinations of 

 ingredients, we can prepare a suitable diet. 



The size of food particle may be an important 

 factor in whether the shrinnp accepts or rejects 

 an artificial food. To test this theory we used 

 shrimp that were 25 mm. (1 inch) to 76 mm. 

 (3 inches) long. The shrinnp were fed either 

 6-nnm. (0.3-inch) cubes of gelatin- bound food 

 or some of the same food "riced" through a 

 screen with 14 n-ieshes per inch. In everytest, 

 the shrimp ate the cubes first; sometimes they 

 left the riced food untouched for Z4 hours. 



At the East Lagoon Laboratory, we held 

 shrinnp in outdoor cennent tanks supplied with 

 running sea water filtered through a fine 

 mesh bag (fig. 3). These animals were fed 

 various commercial foods and foods developed 

 in the laboratory. In the first test we tried 

 two gelatin-bound diets, two trout diets, one 

 catfish diet, and one salmon diet. With the 

 exception of the salnnon food, we tested each 



diet in duplicate. We kept 30 white shrimp that 

 averaged 95 mm. (3.8 inches) total length in 

 each tank for 4 weeks. Growth was similar 

 for all animals, regardless of diet, and the 

 average increase in length over the 4-week 

 period was about 4 nnm. (0.2 inch). We at- 

 tributed poor growth to the low water ten-ipera- 

 ture of 19° to 24.5° C. (67° - 76° F.). Sur- 

 vival was 97 percent or better in 9 of the 11 

 tanks. 



Juvenile brown shrinnp that averaged about 

 76 mm. (3 inches) total length were used as 

 test animals in a second experiment in the 

 outside tanks. The commercially prepared 

 foods fed in this 4-week experiment were cat 

 food, hog food, two dog foods, puppy food, and 

 salnnon food. Shrimp fed one of the dog foods 

 and puppy food were significantly smaller than 

 shrinnp fed the other four diets. Those animals 

 fed salmon food grew best with an average in- 

 crease in length of 23.5 mm. (0.9 inch). Survival 

 was 90 percent or better in all tanks. These 

 shrinnp may have grown more because of the 

 higher water temperature- -25° to 29.5° C. 

 (77° - 85° F.)--than during the previous test. 



Zoula P. Zein-Eldin, Project Leader 

 George W. Griffith 

 Larry J. HoUis 



Figure 3. — Cement tanks in which shrimp were held during food studies. Workers tested various diets to determine 



which food(s) supported the best growth and survival. 



