Replacing of live food with artificial diet on growth and survival rates of white leg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) larvae

Replacing live food with artificial diets in aquatic larviculture, especially in shrimp larvae not only is caused convenience feeding, but also in economical view is very important. With this object, in this survey, a density of 100.L-1 white leg shrimp larvae in 9 nutritional treatments each with three replicates were cultured in 20L tanks each one was held with 10L of 30% salty water using one air stone. The larvae were fed 4 times.day-1 with different diets, including live foods (Cheatoceros gracilis and Artemia nauplii), artificial diets (handmade and imported) and different combinations. The results showed that the growth rate and survival percentage in larvae fed with combination feed treatments, were more desirable than those fed with food and feed treatments and feeding with homemade and imported feeds alone, raised high mortality in shrimp larvae during the experiment. Also, it was denoted that even if the zoea larvae has been fed with live food, feeding with 100% artificial diets for the resting larviculture period wont be possible because of decreasing significantly in growth rate, total length and survival percent of shrimp larvae, compare to the other treatments. In addition, replacing partly of live food with artificial diet without adverse affects on growth and survival rates of white leg shrimp larvae will be possible and the observation supported that the handmade feed with given formulation, had more suitable results comparing to the imported one for mixing with live food economically. Therefore, we recommend that a mixture the formulated diet and algae plus Artemia nauplii is used for culturing white shrimp larvae.