Investigation of alternative protein sources in practical diets for juvenile shrimp, Penaeus monodon

Abstract

A 42-day feeding trial was conducted using juvenile Penaeus monodon (4.86 ± 0.52 s.d. g mean initial weight) to evaluate the efficacy of five isoproteic (40%), isolipidic (4–5%) practical diets containing various (fish and crustacean) protein sources in different combinations. The diets contained laboratory preparations of scallop waste and shrimp head meals (D1), sardine and shrimp head meals (D2), sardine and lobster waste meals (D3), sardine and shrimp head meals with lupinseed meal replacing soybean meal and wheat flour (D4) and commercial preparations of fish and shrimp meals (D5). Diet D1 produced significantly greater weight gain than all other diets ( P < 0.05). Similar responses of feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), and apparent protein utilization (APU) values were observed for shrimp fed diets D1 and D3, and they gave a significantly better performance in FCR ( P < 0.05) and APU ( P < 0.05) than the three other diets. Shrimp fed diet D4 containing lupinseed meal had significantly inferior values of FCR ( P < 0.05) and PER ( P < 0.05) compared to the four other diets, while diet D5 gave the worst response in terms of weight gain and protein gain ( P < 0.05). The survival and whole body composition of juvenile P. monodon were not significantly different among the test diets with a range of 96 to 100% (% survival) and 72.1–74.1%, 8.0–8.8%, and 13.8–15.8% for crude protein, lipid and ash content, respectively ( P > 0.05). The best pellet stability was displayed by diets D1 and D3 and the poorest stability by diet D4 ( P < 0.05). The results of this study indicate that the combination of various dietary protein sources produced significantly different biological responses in juvenile P. monodon. The diet combining scallop waste and shrimp head meals as major protein sources (D1) was found to be relatively superior to other diets for juvenile P. monodon, followed by the diets containing sardine and shrimp head meals (diet D2) and sardine and lobster waste meals (diet D3). The commercial fish and shrimp meal based diet (D5) and the sardine and shrimp head meal based diet containing lupinseed meal (D4) gave the poorest performance.