The design, management and production of a recirculating raceway system for the production of marine shrimp

Despite continuing problems with disease outbreaks and environmental concerns over effluent pollution and land usage, world shrimp farming continues to expand. Although traditional pond production systems will continue to be the dominant driving force in aquaculture expansion, there is continued interest in alternate production systems. The use of high density, water reuse systems is one alternative to conventional pond production systems which addresses restrictions associated with environmental regulations and user conflicts of coastal land and water usage. This paper reports on techniques which have been developed for the production of marine shrimp in recirculating raceway systems and typical results which have been observed over a 6-year production period. Both bait shrimp (Penaeus setiferus) and food shrimp (P. vannamei) have been produced with final biomass loads as high as 10 kg/m(3) utilizing 100-120-day and 160-175-day production cycles, respectively. Results from multi-phase growout are most promising and indicate that this may be a suitable mechanism to optimize biomass loading of the culture system. Although the economic viability of recirculating production systems for bait and food size shrimp have yet to be proven, the consistent results of production, low water usage and ease of waste management are encouraging and warrant further economic and marketing evaluations. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.