Effect of substitution of shrimp meal, fish meal and soy meal with red crab Pleuroncodes planipes (Stimpson) meal in pelleted diets for postlarvae and juvenile Farfantepenaeus californiensis (Holmes)

A study was conducted to investigate red crab Pleuroncodes planipes (Stimpson) as a protein source in experimental diets for postlarvae and juvenile brown shrimp Farfantepenaeus californiensis (Holmes). Four experimental diets were prepared. The base diet contained 10% shrimp meal, 25% fish meal and 27% soy meal plus other ingredients. Complete substitution of shrimp meal with red crab meal (RCM) was done on the remaining diets. Additionally, 5% of the soy meal was replaced with RCM in one diet, and 4% of the fish meal was replaced with RCM in the last diet. A commercial diet (36% crude protein) was used as an external comparison diet to provide a basis to evaluate the growth of shrimp on the test diets. The trial with shrimp postlarvae showed that diets containing RCM produced better results in terms of final weight (3.24–3.55 g), growth rate (0.044–0.046 g d-1) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (3.7–3.8) than the base or the commercial comparison diets. The FCR was significantly different between the base diet (4.5) and the commercial diet (5.5). Final weight (3.83 g) and growth rate (0.044 g d-1) were higher when the diet replacing 4% fish meal was used to feed juveniles. The commercial diet produced the lowest values of final weight (2.57 g) and growth rate (0.025 g d-1) and the highest FCR (5.6) (P<0.05). These results indicate that the use of P. planipes as a replacement for traditional ingredients in shrimp rations is desirable.