Low Salinity Rearing of the Pacific White Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei: Acclimation, Survival and Growth of Postlarvae and Juveniles

Abstract

Low salinity rearing of Litopenaeus vannamei requires the transfer of postlarvae (PL) from high salinity hatchery systems to low salinity conditions. In order to determine effective transfer methods, fifteenday-old postlarvae (PL15) were acclimated from a salinity of 30 ppt to endpoint salinities of 1 and 5 ppt using single-step and gradual salinity reduction procedures. Higher survival rates were obtained with gradual acclimation than with single-step acclimation. Survival of PL15 acclimated to 5 ppt was better than that of PL15 acclimated to 1 ppt. Survival of PL15 and juvenile stages in various low salinity treatments ranging from 0-5 ppt was also compared. In the PL stage, survival rates were good (>85%) in salinities over 1.5 ppt. Tolerance to low salinities increased with age and survival rate of juveniles (65%) was higher than that of PL (2%) in freshwater. In our long-term growth trials of juvenile shrimp maintained in different salinities, optimal growth comparable to that in normal seawater was observed in animals reared in a salinity of 5 ppt, demonstrating that L. vannamei can be successfully cultured in low-salinity inland systems.

Effects of low salinity exposure on immunological, physiological and growth performance inLitopenaeus vannamei

“…In the present work, the growth performance parameters of the juvenile shrimp (3.5 g) exposed to salinities of 1 to 35 g/L in temperature oscillations from 25.2 to 27.9°C were not significantly different, except for a relatively lower shrimp survival in the 10 g/L treatment (83.3%). These results agree with that reported by Jayasankar et al () who determined that in the long‐term growth trials of juvenile shrimp maintained at different salinities, optimal growth comparable to that in normal seawater was observed in animals reared in a salinity of 5 g/L, demonstrating that L. vannamei can be successfully cultured in low‐salinity inland systems, as reported by Esparza‐Leal et al () who found that shrimp can be successfully grown in low‐salinity well water and growth, production output and survival rates are significantly higher when shrimp are acclimated for longer periods. Although it is also important to take into account what was reported by Laramore et al (), who found that postlarval survival at 4 g/L was not significantly different from 30 g/L and that juveniles exhibited better survival at lower salinities (2 g/L) than 0.05 and 0.35 g postlarvae.…”

Osmoregulation pattern and salinity tolerance of the white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone, 1931) during post-embryonic development

“…In our experiments, PL4 is able to tolerate salinity of 5 psu, and PL2 and PL3 can tolerate 10 psu, while in Aquacop's (1991) study, PL2 and PL3 only tolerated a salinity of 20 psu and the tolerance to low salinity occurred from PL20. Our results are in agreement with the high Jayasankar et al (2009), still in the same species, for PL15 and Juvenile in 5 psu and with the high survival for PL22 at 22, 25, and 28 psu reported previously by Pan et al (2007).…”

“…The tolerance to low salinity (FW to 20 psu) is known to be acquired progressively, from PL2 to PL20 (Aquacop et al, 1991), but the timing of tolerance to high salinity is unknown. Between PL10 to PL23, and in juvenile and adult the range of survival depends on the combination of salinity with each developmental stage among other variables (Balbi et al, 2005;Esparza-Leal et al, 2010;Jayasankar et al, 2009;Laramore et al, 2001;McGraw et al, 2002;Ponce-Palafox et al, 1997;Sowers et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2009).…”

Effect of salinity on performance and body composition of Pacific white shrimp juveniles reared in a super-intensive system

“…In this study, shrimp survival was significantly affected by salinity, with increasing mortality as the salinity decreased from 32 to 16 and 4‰. Similar effects were reported by Laramore et al (2001) with L. vannamei post-larvae at salinities of 4 and 30‰ (survival of 86 and 100%, respectively); Jayasankar et al (2009), with post-larvae at salinities of 0.0, 0.5, 0.75 and 1.5‰ (survival of 2, 29, 47 and 85%, respectively) and juveniles at salinities of 0.0, 0.5 and 0.75‰ (survival of 65, 77 and 93%, respectively); Decamp et al (2003), with juveniles, in a system without water exchange, at salinities of 9, 18 and 36‰ (survival of 68, 93 and 94%, respectively); and Maicá et al (2012), with juveniles, in the same system, at salinities of 2, 4 and 25‰ (survival of 22.50, 72.73 and 97.50%, respectively). Moreover, Perez-Velazquez et al (2012) observed a reduced value of survival of L. vannamei post-larvae reared at a water temperature of 24 ºC, at a salinity level of 4‰ and with a Na + :K + ratio of 120 (10.0%), compared with the 40 (95%).…”