Supono, Johannes Hutabarat, Slamet Budi Prayitno and YS Darmanto
Heterotrophic aquaculture system is an environmental friendly shrimp culture that has a huge potency to improve yields of Litopenaeus vannamei. Biofloc grown in a heterotrophic aquaculture system that can be used as an alternative feed for shrimp due to its high nutrition. Biofloc contains bacterial protein and polyhydroxybutyrate that are able to enhance growth. Biofloc also contains bacteria that have peptidoglycan and lipopolysaccharide on their cell walls. The aim of the research was to study the effect of heterotrophic aquaculture system on culturing of Litopenaeus vannamei during nursery phase. The experiment was arranged in split plot design in three replicateses. The treatments consisted of two factors namely various densities and different aquaculture systems. The aquaculture systems were autotrophic and heterotrophic aquaculture system, while densities were 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 PLm-3. The result showed that there was no significant interaction between densities and aquaculture system
toward the growth rate, protein efficiency ratio and yield of Litopenaeus vannamei. The heterotrophic aquaculture system was able to increase the yield of Litopenaeus vannamei on nursery phase. However heterotrophic aquaculture system did not significantly affect growth rate and protein efficiency ratio of Litopenaeus vannamei. While, the density significantly affected survival rate and yield of Litopenaeus vannamei.