The Effect of Dosage Combination and Feeding Frequency on Growth and Survival Rate of Vannamei Shrimp Juveniles in Ponds

Abstract Vannamei shrimp production in Indonesia has experienced a rapid development in the last decade. One of the main problems in the cultivation of vannamei shrimp in ponds is the high use of artificial feed. This study aimed to examine the combination of feed dose and feeding frequency on the growth and survival rate of vannamei shrimp farmed in ponds. Vannamei shrimp juveniles were kept in square floating net cages (1 m x 1 m x 1.5 m) called hapa suspended in the ponds. The feed formulation used corn flour substituted with 50% sweet potato flour as a carbohydrate source. The research used a factorial Completely Randomised Design (CRD). The first factor was the feed dose (3%, 6% and 9% of shrimp bodyweight) and the second factor was the feeding frequency (3, 4 and 5 times per day). There were 3 replicates of each combination of treatments giving a total of 27 experimental units. The experiment lasted 8 weeks. The results showed a significant influence of treatment applied on the growth and survival of juvenile vannamei shrimp. The highest daily growth rate of shrimp was 3.98% obtained with the 3% feed dose treatment combined with the feeding frequency of 4 times per day. The highest survival rate of vannamei shrimp was 80%, obtained with a combination of 3% feed dose and feeding frequencies of 3 and 4 times per day.