Efficacy of Probiotics and Bioflocs on the Production Performance of Tiger Shrimp Penaeus monodon and Pacific White Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei during Polyculture Operation

Shrimp culture has been developed during the last three decades and the production of farmed shrimp reached its peak. However, the shrimp production was decreased all over the World including in Asian Countries because of the mass mortality due to the outbreak of several diseases predominantly White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) which caused extensive economic damage to the shrimp culture industry. Various Polyculture technologies of shrimp with shellfish, finfish or seaweeds have been implemented to reduce economic damages by mass mortality of shrimp. The present study was conducted with Tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon and Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei through Polyculture operation to determine optimum stocking ratios for induction of best performance and highest production rates. Initially, the experiments were conducted with different ratios and combinations of stocking densities 1:1, 2:1 and 1:2 ratios of Penaeus monodon and Litopenaeus vannamei with control group feed with commercial feed, the other group certain Probiotic bacteria such as Bacillus licheniformis and Lactobacillus rhamnosus added in feed, the third group both the Probiotic bacteria and the addition of external Carbon source from sugarcane molasses in the form of Bioflocs for 100 days. To ascertain further interaction of ratios influence, 20:10, 20:12, 20:15 ratios of stocking and Monoculture experiments were conducted. In both the experiments the Survival rate, Final body weights, Weight Gain, Feed conversion ratio, Specific growth rates, Average daily growth rates, Protein efficiency ratio, and Productivity rates were significantly different (P<0.05) in all the different treatments both for P. monodon and L. vannamei. From the results obtained 20:10 ratio of P. monodon and L. vannamei was considered as the best ratio of stocking, which yielded the highest production rates in all the Control, Probiotic added and both Probiotic & Biofloc added groups. The results obtained in the present study clearly demonstrate that the rearing of taxonomically similar species with optimum stocking ratios seems to improve the efficiency of shrimp farming and substantially increasing the production rates. So, this polyculture of P. monodon and L. vannamei can be considered as an alternative approach towards the establishment of sustainable shrimp farming activity which will yield good economic returns.