Effect of Artemia urmiana enriched with Chaetoceros sp. microalgae on growth performance and body chemical composition of Litopenaeus vannamei

Abstract

Introduction: One of the factors that have led to the explosive development of shrimp
farming, promoting normal growth and maintaining shrimp health in the last two decades
is the use of a high-quality proper diet. The present study was performed to investigate
the effect of Artemia urmiana enriched with Chaetoceros sp. On the growth function and
body chemical composition of Litopenaeus vannamei.
Materials & Methods: The experiments were performed in a completely randomized
design in the form of 4 food treatments and each treatment consisting of three replications
in 12 tanks (60 liter). Artemia nauplii were enriched with Chaetoceros sp. microalgae
with a density of 442×104, 348×104, 120×104 cell/mL and the shrimp larvae were
enriched with Artemia 4 times a day for a period of two months and the control group
fed only with unenriched Artemia nauplii.
Results: The results showed that the obtained weight (887.95±0.37%), final weight
(2.76±0.36 g), average daily weight (5.20±0.41 g/day) and coefficient Specific growth
(3.79±0.14) of post-larvae fed with Artemia enriched with a density of 120×104 cells per
ml of microalgae showed a significant increase compared to treatments fed with a density
of 442×104, 348×104 cell/mL of microalgae and control (p<0.05). Also, there was a
significant difference between the growth indices and feed conversion ratio of treatments
fed with different densities of microalgae compared to the control group (p<0.05). In
addition, the treatment fed with a density of 120×104 cell/mL of microalgae had the
highest crude protein (35.97±1%), crude fat (6.54 ± 0.56%), ash (11.23 ±0.33%) and total
amino acids (10.02±0.15 g amino acid/g sample) (p<0.05).
Conclusion: In general, based on the results of this study, feeding of shrimp post larvae
with enriched Artemia nauplii with a density of 120 ×104 cell/mL of Chaetoceros sp.
microalgae is recommended to improve growth performance, nutrition, body quality and
amino acids profile.