Seto Sugianto Prabowo Rahardjo, Febriyani Eka Supriatin, Anggi Dwi Septiansyah, Mukhammad Fery Fadli, Aulia Rahmawati, Rizky Fadilla Agustin Rangkuti
Aquaculture plays a vital role in meeting global protein needs, with Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) being a key export species. As intensive farming expands, effective early-stage feeding strategies are crucial for enhancing productivity and sustainability. Although blind feeding is widely used during the first month, its comparative effectiveness remains underexplored. This study presents a comparative analysis of two blind feeding methods: the Index Method (IM) and the Feeding Rate Method (FR). The experiment was conducted over 30 days across 20 production ponds, each with an average area of 3340 m2, and included ten replicates per treatment. The stocking density was 154 shrimp/m2. Key water quality indicators, including clarity (75–77 cm), temperature (27.7–28.9 °C), pH (8.14–8.15), dissolved oxygen (5.3–5.4 mg/L), salinity (31.51–31.55 mg/L), ammonia (0.02–0.021 mg/L), and plankton abundance (2.8–4.1 × 104 cells/mL), showed insignificantly different. The IM calculates daily feed allocation based on projected growth targets and a fixed index coefficient, allowing adaptive feeding but requiring more management input. In contrast, the FR method utilizes biomass estimates and feeding tables, offering more straightforward quantification and potential for automation, but is less responsive to variations in appetite. The IM method demonstrated superior production performance, including higher feed intake (2.31 vs. 2.61 g/shrimp), average body weight (2.43 vs. 2.11 g/shrimp), survival rate (97 % vs. 81 %), and a better feed conversion ratio (1.0 vs. 1.3). These findings highlight the potential of IM to improve feed efficiency and stabilize outcomes during the blind feeding stage in intensive shrimp culture. © 2025 Elsevier B.V.
Department of Aquaculture, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, Brawijaya University, Indonesia; Suri Tani Pemuka Corporation (STP), a subsidiary of Java Pelletizing Factory (JAPFA), Indonesia; Center for Shrimp Research Commodity, Brawijaya University, East Java, Indonesia
