A preliminary study on polyculture of western white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) with mullet (Mugil cephalus): an assessment of water quality, growth parameters, feed intake efficiency and survival

Seyyed Hossein Hosseini Aghuzbeni,Saeed Hajirezaee,Abbas Matinfar,Hossein Khara,Mahmoud Ghobadi

doi:10.1080/09712119.2016.1150845

Seyyed Hossein Hosseini Aghuzbeni, Saeed Hajirezaee + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/09712119.2016.1150845

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Abstract

ABSTRACTA polyculture system composed of western white shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei and Mullet, Mugil cephalus, was established to create favourable biological condition and improve shrimp growth. Totally, nine earthen ponds of 600 m2 (three treatments with three replicates) were prepared in the Gwadar area (located in the coastal area of Oman Sea, southeast of Iran) for our experiment. The L. vannamei post-larvae (PLs) (average body weight: 0.007 ± 0.001 g) were stocked at a density of 20 PLs m−2 in each experimental pond. After 40 days of storage, mullets with size of 20–50 cm were stocked at densities of 0 (T1), 2 (T2) and 4 (T3) fish per 100 m2 of ponds, respectively. The growth parameters (including: specific growth rate, mean weight), food conversion ratio (FCR) and survival rate (SR) of shrimps were measured during the experiment. After 107 days of the experiment, the highest shrimp biomass was obtained in T3 (212 kg) and T1 yielded the lowest biomass (187 kg). The mean body weight of each shrimp was 18.4 and 16.23 g in T3 and T1 , respectively (P < 0.05). The SR and FCR did not show significant differences between treatments (P > 0.05). In conclusion, the present experiment demonstrated that polyculture of western white shrimp with mullet improves growth and subsequently the production of western shrimp.

Highlights

Polyculture consists of adding one or more subordinate species to the culture system of a main species (Lanza-Espino et al 1991)
Our results showed that the growth rate, mean weight and total biomass of harvested shrimps were significantly higher in the polyculture of shrimp and mullet compared with monoculture system after 4 months culture days
There are no differences between polyculture and monoculture in terms of food conversion ratio (FCR) and survival rate (SR) of shrimps

Summary

Introduction

Polyculture consists of adding one or more subordinate species to the culture system of a main species (Lanza-Espino et al 1991). Several benefits have been reported in shrimp polyculture systems when using fish and other aquatic organisms as subordinate species, despite the fact that polyculture is not yet a common practice (MartinezPorchas et al 2010). Some authors believed that adding secondary species improves the performance of the main cultured organism (Wang et al 1998; Tian et al 2001). Belton and Little (2008) demonstrated that integrated aquaculture practices, such as polyculture, are good alternatives for reducing contamination it can contribute to minimizing the environmental impact of farm effluents, those related to nitrogenous wastes, which are further converted into toxic metabolites. Some authors reported that shrimp culture with mullet and milkfish had benefits in the removal of nitrogenous wastes from the shrimp ponds (Eldani & Primavera 1981; Marichamy & Rajapackram 1982).

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