THE PERCENTAGE OF FEED DEBRIS REMAINED ON FEEDING TRAY IN INTENSIVE VANNAMEI SHRIMP (Litopennaeus vannamei) UNDER FEEDING ROTATION TECNIQUES

Muhammad Nur Syafaat*, Abdul Mansyur, and Syarifuddin Tonnek
 
Research Institute for Coastal Aquaculture
Jl. Makmur Dg. Sitakka No.129 Maros, Sulawesi Selatan
Indonesia, 90512
muhammad.nursyafaat@kkp.go.id

Commercial shrimp feed costs the major expenditure in intensive shrimp farming, therefore feeding management should be considered carefully to reduce the production costs. Most farmers in Indonesia monitor the remaining feed on the feeding tray and applied low protein feed as part of feeding management. This study was aimed to analyze the amount of high and low protein feed remaining on the feeding tray during the feeding rotation.

This study was conducted in Shrimp pond research facilities in Takalar Regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. One shrimp pond of 3,500 m2 was used during the study. The post larvae (PL 8) was stocked with density of 150 ind./m2 and feed with high protein content during the first month of farming. The feeding rotation was started at the second month of culture period where low protein feed (26-28%) were applied for two consecutive days then replaced by high protein feed (28-30%) for one day until the end of farming period. Four feeding trays were applied after 33 days of farming where the amount of feed in the feeding tray was 0.5% from total amount of feed, furthermore, the amount of feed was then increased to 1 and 2% from total feed at day 42 and 60, respectively. The observation on the amount of feed left on the feeding tray was two hours after feeding.

The results of this study indicated that shrimp mostly prefer high protein compared to low protein feed as indicated by small amount of high protein feed debris left on the feeding tray compared to that observed on low protein feed (Picture 1). However, the statistical analysis indicates that there were significant differences between these amounts of feed. This study also revealed that water temperature has pivotal role on the amount of feed debris left on the feeding trays particularly for feed with high protein content (r = 0.6). In addition, the amount of unconsumed feed was higher in the night time compared to that observed at the day time. In general, the lunatic cycle affected the amount of unconsumed feed where the amount of unconsumed feed was higher at the neap moon. In contrary the amount of unconsumed high protein feed was higher in the full moon period (Table 1). This study recommends more amount feed is applied during the day time; whereas for feeding in the night time, more feed is applied during the neap moon.