Evaluation of practical diets containing various terrestrial protein sources on survival and growth parameters of redclaw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus.

摘要

Redclaw aquaculture has developed at a rapid pace during the past few years, yet no specialized diet for the species has been developed. The present study was designed to evaluate whether soybean-based diets containing either fishmeal (FM), poultry by-product meal (PBM), ground peameal (GPM) or distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) meal as a protein source are suitable for redclaw aquaculture. Juvenile redclaw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus (0.125+or-0.025 g) were stocked into 20 rectangular tanks at a stocking density of 12.5 m-2 for 8 weeks. Crayfish in four replicate tanks were maintained on one of five diets formulated to contain 35% crude protein and 7.1% lipids. Each 100 g of diet contained 25 g of protein from soybean meal (SBM) and 10 g of protein from the alternative protein sources mentioned above. A fifth treatment that did not receive feed was included to account for growth from natural productivity. There were no significant differences in survival (86-90%), growth (3.84-4.98 g animal-1) or feed conversion ratio (2.10-2.79) of crayfish among the four treatments (P