One of the biggest challenges of shrimp aquaculture industry is the reduction of the use of fishmeal and fish oils, with balanced feed called “low-fishmeal (LFM)” feeds. These alternatives often fit well to animals from a nutritional point of view, but tend to under look the taste and attractivity aspect, in which fishmeal plays a huge role. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of a neurosensorial feed additive (NFA) on feed consumption of shrimp fed with HFM (High-fishmeal) and LFM feeds.
During 8 weeks, 900 Pacific white shrimp (Litopeneaus vannamei) with an average initial weight of 0.5g were divided into 18 ponds of 220L each in brackish water with 15 ppt salinity. Faecal matter was siphoned daily, and 60% of the water was changed every third day. The balanced feed used had a protein content of 35% and 7% lipids. The feed was distributed to the shrimp 4 times/day. Diet HFM contained 20% of fishmeal whereas diet LFM contained 10% of fishmeal and 10% of soy protein. Each diet was tested with the inclusion of the NFA (1,5 kg/T) and a control, and each treatment was replicated 4 times. Feed intake rate, live weight, survival rate, and total biomass were measured at the end of the experiment (week 8).
Results have shown that inclusion of NFA in a LFM-diet allowed a similar feed intake to that of a HFM diet without NFA (Fig.1). Also, use of NFA increased significantly feed intake of HFM diet compared to control LFM diet, whereas no significative difference was observed between control HFM and LFM. These resulted suggest that the NFA improves LFM feeds consumption