Effects of Daily Feeding Schedules on Growth and Feed Utilization of Juvenile Pacific White Shrimp (Penaeus vannamei)

Feeding schedule is an important management factor in shrimp culture, but responses to increasing meal frequency vary with ration, shrimp size, feeding method, and culture system. We evaluated five daily schedules (2–6 meals d−1) for juvenile Pacific white shrimp, Penaeus vannamei, using the same biomass-based daily feeding-rate schedule in a filtered-seawater flow-through system. Shrimp (1.40 ± 0.01 g) were stocked at 20 per 300-L tank and reared for 8 weeks with three replicate tanks per treatment. Final body weight, weight gain, specific growth rate, and feed conversion ratio (FCR) differed among schedules (p < 0.05). Shrimp fed four to six times daily (FF4–FF6) showed higher growth and lower FCR than those fed twice daily (FF2), whereas the three-feeding treatment was intermediate. Compared with FF2, FF4 increased final body weight from 10.20 to 13.87 g and reduced FCR from 1.84 to 1.26. No significant differences in growth or FCR were detected among FF4, FF5, and FF6. Linear regression detected significant relationships between meal frequency and all four variables (p ≤ 0.0025). Whole-body proximate composition was evaluated descriptively because one pooled sample per treatment was analyzed in duplicate, and hemolymph AST, ALT, and total protein did not differ significantly. Under the conditions tested, four daily feedings were the lowest schedule associated with improved growth and feed utilization; however, feeding times and intervals also differed among treatments and feed leaching was not quantified.