High protein krill meal as a tool to optimize low costformulas for juvenile Litopenaeus vannamei diets farmedunder semi-intensive conditions

Abstract

To investigate the potential of high-protein krill meal (HPK) toimprove growth in low-cost diets for Pacific white shrimp(Litopenaeus vannamei), a commercial control and a 3% HPKdiet were compared. To simulate a semi-intensive culture sys-tem, a total of 4,500 shrimp with a body weight (BW) of 3.07 ±0.01 g were stocked with 25 animals/m2 in 20 cages in a 2.16-hapond. After 60 days of rearing, the 3% HPK diet achieved a sig-nificantly higher yield (22,094.0 ± 130.35 g/cage) in comparisonto the control diet (19,301.6 ± 272.28 g/cage) (P < 0.05). Whenthe feed cost per kg shrimp produced was compared, it wassignificantly lower in the 3% HPK group (US$1.01/kg shrimp)when compared to the control group (US$1.11/kg shrimp). Theresults indicate that low feeding cost diets can profit from thepartial replacement of fish meal by HPK to optimize shrimpgrowth performance without increasing formula cost.