A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF Litopenaeus vannamei (BOONE, 1931) UNDER NURSERY REARED AND DIRECT STOCKING CULTURE SYSTEMS

Nursery rearing of Litopenaeus vannamei post larvae (PL) for grow out pond has received considerable attention nowadays. In these aspects, very little data available with regards to growth and other parameters like disease and culture duration etc. This study was performed to investigate the influence of nursery phase on survival and growth of Litopenaeus vannamei stocked in the grow out pond. In the present attempt, a single population of high health PL were procured from a commercial hatchery and reared for 30 days at the density of 5.8/lit. Simultaneously, another grow out pond was also stocked at the density of 40/m².   On 31^st DOC (Days of culture) the shrimps were harvested, counted from the nursery tank and stocked in the grow out pond at the density 40/m². Both the ponds were harvested on 90^th DOC, the nursery reared seed stocked pond showed a survival of 97.6% and the direct stocked pond showed a survival of 95.9%.  In the case of nursery reared pond the ABW on harvest (90 DOC) was 2.54g and in the case of direct stocked pond it was 18.10g. During the study period, other parameters like FCR, count, rate, water quality parameters analyzed.