This study was performed to determine the growth and survival patterns of the juvenile yellowleg shrimp Farfantepenaeus californiensis cohabiting with the green feather alga Caulerpa sertularioides over a range of temperatures (18, 22, 25, 28 and 32°C) found throughout the year in the Gulf of California. From an initial weight of 46 ± 10 mg, shrimp cohabiting with green feather algae increased in weight by an average of 0.57 (±0.07), 5.44 (±0.45), 6.36 (±0.37), 7.66 (±0.26) and 5.96 (±0.59) g at 18, 22, 25, 28 and 32°C, respectively, whereas shrimp grown without seaweed increased in weight by an average of 0.28 (±0.026), 2.66 (±0.24), 3.15 (±0.49), 4.00 (±0.67), and 3.54 (±0.09) g respectively. Statistically significant differences were observed for the growth rates of juvenile yellowleg shrimp in the presence of C. sertularioides and peak growth was observed at 28°C in experiments with macroalgae. No significant differences were observed for shrimp survival except at 32°C without macroalgae, where survival was lower. These results suggest a beneficial and growth-promoting effect of cohabitation with live C. sertularioides on F. californiensis.

Precision aquaculture is a new field that allows farmers to have better control over aquaculture processes, facilitating decision-making and improving efficiency. The implementation and evaluation of a low-cost water-quality monitoring system based on open-source hardware, which is easy to rebuild for scientific applications, is reported in this paper. The proposed system measures temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH, taking records and sending information through a wireless protocol (ZigBee) to a graphical user interface which can display information numerically and graphically, as well as simultaneously storing the information in a database. These variables are very important for aquaculture, as they have a direct influence on critical culture parameters such as growth and survival. Although it is a low-cost system, it offers good quality data and demonstrates efficiency for its use in precision aquaculture.

An 8-week feeding trial investigated the effect of Fishmeal (FM) replacement by soybean meal (SBM) and poultry by-product meal (PBM) in diets supplemented with DL-Met, MET-MET (AQUAVI^®), Bacillus amyloliquefaciens CECT 5940 (ECOBIOL^®) and their combinations on growth performance and health of juvenile Litopenaeus vannamei. A total of six experimental diets were formulated according to L. vannamei nutritional requirements. A total of 480 shrimp (0.30 ± 0.04 g) were randomly distributed into 24 tanks (4 repetitions/each diet, 20 shrimp/tank). Shrimp were fed with control diet (CD; 200 g/Kg fishmeal) and five diets with 50% FM replacement supplemented with different methionine sources, probiotic (B. amyloliquefaciens CECT 5940) and their combinations: D1 (0.13% DL-MET), D2 (0.06% MET-MET), D3 (0.19% MET-MET), D4 (0.13% DL-MET plus 0.10% B. amyloliquefaciens CECT 5940 and D5 (0.06% MET-MET plus 0.10% B. amyloliquefaciens CECT 5940). Shrimp fed D3 and D5 had significantly higher final, weekly weight gain, and final biomass compared to shrimp fed CD (p < 0.05). Shrimp fed D2 to D5 increased the hepatopancreas epithelial cell height (p < 0.05). Digestive enzymatic activities were significantly increased in shrimp hepatopancreas’ fed D3 (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, shrimp fed D1 had significant downregulation of immune-related genes (p < 0.05). Moreover, shrimp fed D3 and D5 increased the abundance of beneficial prokaryotic microorganisms such as Pseudoalteromonas and Demequina related to carbohydrate metabolism and immune stimulation. Also, shrimp fed D3 and D5 increased the abundance of beneficial eukaryotic microorganism as Aurantiochytrium and Aplanochytrium were related to eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) production which plays a role in growth promoting or boosting the immunity of aquatic organisms. Therefore, fishmeal could be partially substituted up to 50% by SBM and PBM in diets supplemented with 0.19% MET-MET (AQUAVI^®) or 0.06% MET-MET (AQUAVI^®) plus 0.10% B. amyloliquefaciens CECT 5940 (ECOBIOL^®) and improve the productive performance, health, and immunity of white shrimp. Further research is necessary to investigate synergistic effects of amino acids and probiotics in farmed shrimp diets, as well as to evaluate how SBM and PBM influence the fatty acid composition of reduced fishmeal diets and shrimp muscle quality. Nevertheless, this information could be interesting to develop low fishmeal feeds for aquaculture without affecting the growth and welfare of aquatic organisms.

The future development of shrimp farming needs to improve its ecoefficiency. The purpose of this study was to evaluate water quality, flows, and nitrogen balance and production parameters on a farm with interconnected pond design to improve the efficiency of the semi-intensive culture ofLitopenaeus vannameiponds. The study was conducted in 21 commercial culture ponds during 180 days at densities of 30–35 ind m⁻²and daily water exchange <2%. Our study provides evidence that by interconnecting ponds nutrient recycling is favored by promoting the growth of primary producers of the pond as chlorophylla. Based on the mass balance and flow of nutrients this culture system reduces the flow of solid, particulate organic matter, and nitrogen compounds to the environment and significantly increases the efficiency of water (5 to 6.5 m³ kg⁻¹cycle⁻¹), when compared with traditional culture systems. With this culture system it is possible to recover up to 34% of the total nitrogen entering the system, with production in excess of 4,000 kg ha⁻¹shrimp. We believe that the production system with interconnected ponds is a technically feasible model to improve ecoefficiency production of shrimp farming.

Shrimp farming is supported by fast-growth and high-resistance genotypes. Protein requirement is important for shrimp perfomance. Fishmeal is the main source, but their limited production increase feed formulation costs for aquaculture. This study evaluated the effect of genotype and protein source on performance of two shrimp genotypes. Shrimps with fast-growth (FG) and high-resistance (HR) were randomly assigned to two dietary treatments (animal and vegetal protein) in a 2 × 2 factorial design. A 36-day bioassay was realised in clear-water hyper-intensive system to compare FG and HR performance using three replicate tanks for each genotype and dietary treatment. Each tank was seeded with 10 shrimp with average initial weight of 2.03 ± 0.10 g for FG genotype and 2.07 ± 0.02 g for HR genotype, at a density of 250 shrimp/m³. A weekly biometry was realised to monitor the shrimp performance. We observed a significant interaction (p < .05) between genotype and diet for shrimp growth performance. Compared with HR shrimp, FG shrimp showed higher growth and better feed efficiency. The maximum weight gain was recorded, FG shrimp was significantly higher than HR shrimp independently of protein source. Diet with different protein source significantly influence the performance of FG shrimp, while in HR shrimp there is no significant difference between dietary treatment. The comparison showed that genotype, diet and their interactions influenced the performance of Litopenaeus vannamei. This research may be useful for improving genetic selection programmes, reducing feed costs for shrimp industry and design-feeding strategies for shrimp genotypes.