Impact of automatic feeding on soil quality in Litopenaeus vannamei cultivation

ABSTRACT One of the most important aspects for sustainable aquaculture is the proper management of feed, for which the best strategy is the implementation of automatic feeders that allow optimizing feed rations and optimizing productive performance. The present study evaluated the impact of automatic feeding on soil quality in the cultivation of Litopenaeus vannamei in three experimental pools in a period of three months; where were evaluated the amount of organic matter, organic carbon, pH, nitrogen and the carbon-nitrogen ratio (C/N) to evaluate if there are differences in the feeding and lung-type zones. In the final analyzes no statistical differences (p ≥ 0.05) were observed in the parameters between the feeding areas and between the pools. These results demonstrate that automatic feeding does not cause changes in soil quality in the cultivation of L. vannamei.