A moist artificial diet for prawn broodstock: its effect on the variable reproductive performance of wild caught Penaeus monodon

Experiments were conducted comparing the reproductive performance of Penaeus monodon fed either a fresh frozen diet of squid and mussel or one of two moist artificial diets developed at the Bribie Island Aquaculture Research Centre (BIARC). Diet formulation and biochemical composition are presented, including proximate and fatty acid analysis. Reproductive performance was measured over a 42 day period. Spawner survival, fecundity and hatch rate varied with experimental period but were not affected by the test diets. Diets did however effect the number of spawns per prawn. Prawns fed one of the artificial diets (BIARC2) spawned on average 1.4 times more than prawns fed the squid-mussel control diet. Also, survival of larvae (to protozoea 1) from prawns fed the BIARC2 diet averaged 74.6% while larvae from prawns fed the control diet averaged only 39.5%. The improvement in survival was particularly evident for successive spawns. Thus the artificial diet BIARC2, while not affecting all aspects of reproductive performance resulted in higher overall larvae production than did the control diet of squid-mussel.