Combined diet of yeast, fermented soybean meal, and microparticulate as larval feed in extensive rearing systems for seed production of the oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense

The present study aims to evaluate the effects of several types of larval feed on seed production of the oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense and water quality in extensive rearing systems. Healthy M. nipponense were distributed into fifteen 15-m 2 pond outdoors, and each pond was stocked with 90 prawns including 41 egg-bearing (berried) female prawns, 37 not bearing female prawns, and 12 male prawns for larval production. The experimental design was completely randomized, with four diet groups (diet A: soybean homogenate, diet B: yeast, diet C: yeast + fermented soybean meal, and diet D: yeast + fermented soybean meal + microparticulate diet) and one no feeding control and three replications. There are equal levels of the total protein content in diets A–D. Higher larvae and postlarvae number was obtained for diet C and diet D. Furthermore, the increase of M. nipponense larvae and postlarvae in diets B–D can result in the decrease of zooplankton and increase of phytoplankton in the pond during some periods, simultaneously improving the water quality. The Spearman correlation coefficient (r M,N ) between the amounts of larvae and postlarvae of M. nipponense per pond and zooplankton per pond during the entire experiment period was − 0.56. The highest juvenile M. nipponense production was obtained in the diet D group (3140.00 ± 461.63), which was slightly higher than that in the diet C group (2940.33 ± 382.60). The juvenile M. nipponense production in diet B (2303.00 ± 449.23) was also significantly higher compared to diet A (1106.33 ± 176.64) and the control group (1039.67 ± 212.85). There were no significant differences in the amounts of juvenile M. nipponense between the control and diet A groups, which indicated that the soybean homogenate could not increase the amount of M. nipponense juveniles. Our results clearly showed that diet D significantly raised per unit yield of prawn seed comparing with no feeding and other diet group in extensive rearing systems and that the cost of producing prawn seed with diet D is low, which provide an important foundation for the expansion of oriental river prawn culture.