Effects of Substituting Fish Meal by Chlorella Meal in Practical Diet on Growth, Feed Utilization, and Flesh Quality of Pacific White Shrimp (Penaeus vannamei)

This study investigated the effects of substituting fish meal (FM) in practical diet by chlorella meal on the growth, feed utilization, and flesh quality of Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei). First, a basal diet was prepared with 200 g/kg FM inclusion (FM-20), and then chlorella meal was used to reduce FM inclusion to 150 g/kg (FM-15), 100 g/kg (FM-10), 50 g/kg (FM-5), and 0 g/kg (FM-0), corresponding to the replacement levels of 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of dietary FM, respectively. Shrimp (1.37 ± 0.10 g) were fed with the five isonitrogenous and isolipidic diets for 56 days. No significant difference was observed in feed conversion ratio (FCR) and weight gain (WG) between FM-20 and FM-15 group (P > 0.05), but when chlorella meal substituted 50% of dietary FM, WG, protein and lipid retention, and n-3/n-6 PUFAs in flesh were significantly reduced with significant increase in FCR (P < 0.05). Survival, feed intake, meat yield, apparent digestibility coefficient of crude protein, dry matter, and flesh shear force showed no significant difference between FM-20 and substituted groups (P > 0.05). When dietary FM was totally substituted by chlorella meal, the body yellowness and redness and essential amino acid content in flesh, including Lys and Met, were significantly reduced (P < 0.05). No significant differences were found in flesh total collagen, crude lipid, crude protein, serum biochemical indexes, flesh texture profiles (hardness, springiness, etc.), water holding capacity, antioxidant capacity, fatty acid, free amino acid composition, and muscle fiber density among the five treatments (P > 0.05). To sum up, in a practical diet with 200 g/kg FM inclusion, chlorella meal successfully replaced 25% of dietary FM without adverse impacts on the growth and feed utilization, and the substitution of 75% of dietary FM did not negatively affect the flesh quality of Pacific white shrimp.