First Scientific Publication | Shrimp Nutrition

Peace Steemians,

I would like to share with the community the first published article I had the honor to complete with the help of the co author and members of the Aquatic animal nutrition laboratory at Kagoshima University Japan.

A feeding trial at the field laboratory of Kagoshima university was conducted to assess the effects of dietary marine algae as powder or lipid on survival, growth performance and fatty acids content in Kuruma shrimp juvenile.

The marine algal selected for these experiments were Nannochloropsis sp.

Seven isonitrogenous, isolipidic and isocaloric diets were formulated to contain in

• First group graded levels of Nannochloropsis powder:
  0% (control diet),
  4% (A),
  7% (B) and
  10% (C) dry matter
  then

• Second group algae oil proportionally extracted (AE, BE and CE, respectively).

The feeding trial was conducted for 50 days.

The results showed that the substitution of fish oil with algae powder diets A, B and C significantly improved shrimp growth compared to control, with the highest final body weight (FBW), weight gain (WG) and specific growth rate (SGR) recorded for C group.

Shrimp fed diet containing algae lipid as fish oil replacement (1:1 dry matter) performed higher than control with an exception of group AE.

The fatty acids analyse of shrimp tissue revealed that the group fed algae lipid had an improved profile of the fatty acids as the essential fatty acids was digested better than algae powder diet or control diet.

Fish oil partially replaced with dietary algae significantly increased the amount of n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids in shrimp muscle.

A small addition of docosahexaenoic acid content was also observed indicating the occurrence of n-3
polyunsaturated fatty acid bioconversion from Nannochloropsis sp. into n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids.

Nannochloropsis powder can be used to substitute fish oil at the optimum level of 1.58 g algae lipid without negative effect on growth, survival and fatty acids profile of juvenile kuruma shrimp.