Effect of dietary supplementation of phosphorus on growth and phosphorus excretion in Indian white shrimp, Fenneropenaeus indicus (Milne Edwards)

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to determine the effect of supplementary phosphorus on growth and faecal excretion in juveniles of Fenneropenaeus indicus. A practical feed was formulated using fish meal, squid, mantis shrimp, soyabean meal, wheat flour, fish oil and lecithin. To this feed, phosphorus
was supplemented as mono sodium di- hydrogen orthophosphate at 0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0%.
Results of a 60- day feeding trial in triplicate on the juveniles of F. indicus (initial average live weight 0.45 ± 0.008 g) showed that dietary supplementation of phosphorus was essential and the best performance (310 % increase in live weight and 1.40 FCR) was recorded by the feed having 7.50 g kg-1 supplementary phosphorus (total phosphorus in the diet 1.83%) which was significantly higher than the control feed fed groups having 1.03% dietary phosphorus (live weight increase
224% and FCR 1.60). Additional supplementary phosphorus (more than 0.75 g/100g) had no beneficial effect. Shrimp fed with different feeds maintained the body phosphorus level in the range of 1.23- 1.31g/100g irrespective of dietary phosphorus levels and the same trend was continued in Ca : P
ratio in the body. There was no significant change in the proximate composition of the experimental shrimps on termination of the feeding trial. Phosphorus excretion in faeces increased with increase in dietary phosphorus.