Growth performance of white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei fed with Various dosages of prebiotic honey

Abstract

The intensive culture system of white shrimp with high stocking density leads to slow shrimp growth performance. An alternative way to increase the growth performance of white shrimp is using a prebiotic. This study was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of honey as a prebiotic through commercial feed to improve the growth performance of white shrimp. The white shrimp were reared with comercial feed that have been enriched with honey. This study consisted of four treatments, which were: control (without prebiotic), and the giving of honey at dosages of (A) 0.2%; (B) 0.4%; (C) 0.6%, each treatment with three replications. The average weight of vaname shrimp used was 0.44±0.11 g, maintained with a density of 270 shrimp/m-3 with an aquarium size of (60×30×30 cm3). The results of this study indicate that honey with a dosage of 0.6% results in the best growth performance with a growth rate of 0.14±0.002 g/day, specific growth rate of 4.70±0.02%/day, and feed conversion ratio of 1.53±0.02.