Best management practices are by far the best way to manage and mitigate faulty farming induced stress in shrimps.
Starting with pond preparation, water quality management ,using high quality feeds that provide superior nutrition, usage of additional nutritional supplements ,overall health enhancers, addressing unexpected weather conditions like rains, heat waves, cyclonic storms etc till the harvest date is crucial for optimum growth and survivals.
The major check boxes to look out for to reduce stress are as follows:
✓ Thinning down of stocking densities by transfer of stocks to grow out ponds from nurseries on time.
✓ Maintaining optimum Stocking densities by increasing water volumes when the Biomass increases beyond the carrying capacity.
✓ Curtailing the over-bloom of toxic planktons
✓ Closely monitoring shrimp activity and feeding every day.
✓ Removing competitor weeds and fishes from the pond.
✓ Regular health checks and sampling to be carried out with least stress to the shrimps especially early in the morning when temperature is lower and ideal.
✓ Partial harvesting with least disturbance to the pond bottom
✓ Periodic checking of water quality parameters like dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, Ammonia and Alkalinity
✓ Usage of immune boosters, prebiotics, health care products and nutritional supplements
✓ Good quality feeds that provide good nutrition is very important as success of shrimp farming in the long run depends on health of the farmed shrimps till the date of harvest.
These BMP’s when followed can mitigate stress induced problems in Shrimp farming.
Blogger:
Dr. Sathish Prasad
Senior Scientist – Aquatic Animal Health
Growel Innovation Center,
RS NO.57, Chevuru Village, Sriharipuram Panchayat, Mudinepalli Mandal, Krishna District – Andhra Pradesh India – 521329
Email: [email protected]