Use of ongrown Artemia in nursery culturing of the tiger shrimp

Abstract

Juvenile and adult Artemia produced in a semi flow-through culture system were used as food for postlarval shrimp. The growth performance of shrimp reared on such ongrown Artemia live prey is identical to the growth obtained when feeding newly hatched Artemia. However, a significantly better stress resistance is obtained when the postlarvae are exposed to a low salinity in a stress test. Besides nutritional and energetic advantages, the use of Artemia biomass for feeding postlarval shrimp also results in improved economics as expenses for cysts and weaning diets can be reduced.