• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.339-345
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• 2008

Farming of the fleshy shrimp Fenneropenaeus chinensis which is a major cultured species in the west coast of South Korea, has been suffered :trom mass mortality due to disease epizootics including viruses. Since the Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei was introduced to Korea in 2003, farming of this species has rapidly increased for years, occupying 62.5% of total cultured shrimp production in 2007. However the studies on L. vannamei culture methods for shrimp farming situations in Korea are very limited. Nursery culture of shrimp larvae has some advantages including increased survival, improved feed efficiencies, enhanced growth performance and reduced grow-out period. In this study, L. vannamei postlarvae (${PL_3}-{PL_{10}}$) with a density of $3,750-9,090/m^3$ were cultured in four raceways under limited water exchange condition for 35 days. Survival was the highest (93.6%) in tank stocked with $4,090/m^3$ and was the lowest in tank with $9,090/m^3$ (58.1 %). Mean body weight at harvest ranged from 0.071 to 0.108 g, and FCR was 0.59-0.70 in all tanks. Concentration of total ammonia nitrogen was increased up to 20 ppm on day 10 in all tanks and thereafter gradually decreased by the third week of culture. Nitrite-nitrogen was rapidly increased from the third week, representing bio-floc condition by developed nitrifying bacterial community. Of the present nursery system some modification of structure and consideration for commercial scale are needed in order to be implemented to shrimp farmers.