Effect of Chinese herbal medicines on growth and non -specific immunity in Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei
DONG Xiao-hui , LI Ming, YE Ji-dan
1. Laboratory of Aquatic Economic Animal Nutrition and Feed, College of Fisheries, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524025, China; 2. Institute of Aquaculture Biotechnology, Jimei University, Xiamen 361021, China
Abstract: A feeding experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different supplemental levels of dietary Chinese herbal mixture of Astragalus, Isatis root, Honeysuckle and Gypsum with an equal ratio on growth and nonspecific immunity in Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei. The shrimp juveniles with an average body weight of 0.1 g were stocked into a culture system and fed the diet containing 41% of crude protein supplemented with the Chinese herbal medicine at a rate of 0.0%, 0.5%, 0.9%, 1.3%, 1.7%, 2.1% and 2.5% for 56 days. Weight gain rate（WGR） and specific growth rate of the shrimp were found to increase with the increase in the dietary Chinese herbal mixture, but to increase significantly only in the 〈0.05）. There were no significant differences among all Through quadratic model regression analysis between WGR group of 2.5 % level compared to the control group （P treatments for feed conversion ratio and survival rate. and the Chinese herbal compound levels in the diets,one regression equation was expressed as Y = - 125. 86X^2 ＋ 521.93 ＋ 6063 （R^2 = 0.9561 ）. The maximal WGR was observed when the Chinese herbal compound level in diets was 2.07%. The activities of superoxide dismutase, phenoloxidase, lysozyme and alkaline phosphatase were significantly higher in the serum of the shrimp fed test diets than that in the control. However, the activities of serum acid phosphatase and peroxidase were not significantly influenced by the dietary Chinese herbal levels, indicating that the Chinese herbal compound supplementation improves the growth, feed utilization and the ability of non- specific immunity in the shrimp.
2009, Vol. 24 
