The increases in shrimp production in conventional semi-intensive culture systems have been limited by several factors such as disease, weaknesses of the systems or competition by culture area with other industries. Several studies have focused on improving the new technologies necessary to increase shrimp production. The Biofloc Technology C ulture Systems (BFT) is considered a revolutionary system in aquaculture, because its production of microorganisms helps in the maintenance of water quality, reduces feed conversion rates, and increases biosecurity, resulting in high production multiples crops . Additionally, BFT is considered environmentally friendly, with an ability to reuse the same water multiple times, thus avoiding pollution of coastal waters. Technological innovation permits increases in shrimp production capacity per unit area . The addition of new management tools such as air injectors (nozzles), artificial substrate , clarifiers and some procedures may allow unprecedented increases in the load capacity of these systems .
For example, the demand for dissolved oxygen (DO) by shrimp is one of the main concerns as culture systems intensify. In intensive or super- intensive culture of shrimp can be possible if the system’s aeration devices can meet the organism’s oxygen demand. The number of devices to be used will depend on the water’s salinity and temperature, stocking density, shrimp size, and in the BFT systems the amount of suspended solids. For this reason, studies and evaluations of the support capacity of each new aeration technology is important to maximize its effect.
Therefore, several researchers have evaluated the influence of the limitation of different parameters and procedures. These are important challenges to overcome the production when working in BFT with high densities, and different devices and other procedures (Table 1), that can have significant impacts on shrimp development in super-intensive system.
In the present study we evaluate these important changes from conventional to BFT systems, a nd we discuss the influence of high stocking densities on water quality and on the growth performance of P. vannamei in a BFT system with the adoption of these new tools and procedures.