First use of biofloc technology for Penaeus monodon culture in Bangladesh: Effects of stocking density on growth performance of shrimp, water quality and bacterial growth

•First use of biofloc technology for indoor Penaeus monodon culture in Bangladesh using commercial probiotics.•Shrimps reared with a low stocking density (400 PL/m3) showed better growth performance with a lower FCR.•Biofloc technology with lower stocking density significantly increased THB and reduced VLB populations. The bacterial population plays a crucial role in recycling the organic matter and metabolizing the toxic nitrogenous compounds under biofloc technology (BFT). The biofloc technology has been successfully implemented for several fish species, but not for shrimp culture in Bangladesh. The major objectives of this study were to determine the effects of stocking density on the growth performance of tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon under biofloc technology (BFT) rearing system using commercial probiotics and to investigate the abundance of total heterotrophic bacteria (THB) and vibrio-like bacteria (VLB) in different biofloc treatments and their water quality parameters. The experiment was conducted with three different stocking densities in three BFT tanks (2.5 × 2.0 × 1.0 m) with triplicate and three control tanks filled in clearwater. All these tanks were built with cement and can contain 5000 L of water. Visually healthy, disease-free P. monodon postlarvae (weighted 0.18 ± 0.02 g) were collected from a local hatchery and stocked in three different stocking densities, i.e., 400 PL/m3 (CW), 400 PL/m3 (BFT1), 450 PL/m3 (BFT2) and 500 PL/m3 (BFT3). Shrimps were fed four times a day with commercial feed (Biomer, 40 % crude protein) for 127 days. Significant differences (P < 0.05) in specific growth rate, food conversion ratio, and protein efficiency ratio of shrimp were found among the treatments and the control group. The overall final biomass in BFT1 (5.88 ± 0.12 kg m3) was significantly higher (P < 0.05) than that of other BFT groups and the control (3.40 ± 0.09 kg m3). The present findings showed that the biofloc technology with lower stocking density was reducing the total ammonia nitrogen, nitrite-N, and nitrate-N in water and significantly increased THB and reduced VLB populations.