Chlorella vulgaris meal improved growth performance, digestive enzyme activities, fatty acid composition and tolerance of hypoxia and ammonia stress in juvenile Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei

This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of fish meal substitution by Chlorella vulgaris meal in the diet of Pacific white shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei. Experimental diets contained varying levels of fish meal (400, 300, 200, 100 and 0 g/kg) which was replaced by increasing levels of C. vulgaris (0, 97.2, 194.4, 291.6 and 388.8 g/kg). After 8 weeks of feeding trial, shrimp fed diet with 97.2 g/kg C. vulgaris showed significantly improved growth compared to other treatments including control. Similarly, shrimp fed diet with 97.2 g/kg C. vulgaris showed significantly higher amount of trypsin and amylase activities compared to other treatments. The contents of long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids including eicosapentaenoic acid, docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid were significantly higher in the whole body of L. vannamei fed with different levels of C. vulgaris compared to those of control group. After exposure to hypoxia, the survival rate of shrimp fed diets contained different levels of C. vulgaris was higher than that of control group, while no significant differences were observed in ammonia tolerance among treatments. In conclusion, this study indicated that fish meal can be completely replaced with C. vulgaris in the diet of juvenile L. vannamei with no adverse effects on the performance of shrimp.