T. Abeel, F. Vervloesem, J. Claeyé, H. Arnouts en S. Aerts
Poster presentation at the European Crayfish Symposium 2019, Visby, Gotland, Sweden.
An experiment was carried out to determine the optimal photoperiod for indoor farming of juvenile redclaws. Crayfish with an average body weight (ABW) of 0.96 ± 0.66 g were stocked into a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) at a density of 50 crayfish.m-2. During 15 weeks, the crayfish were exposed to four different photoperiods: hours light/dark (L:D) 24:0, 16:8, 12:12 and 0:24.
In this experiment, the highest growth rates were obtained when redclaws were reared in constant light (L:D 24:0), resulting in the highest total biomass and ABW. Highest survival was obtained in the L:D 24:0 and 0:24 treatments. Redclaws farmed in continuous dark conditions, showed the poorest growth rates.
These results suggest that juvenile and pre-adult redclaws should be farmed under continuous light conditions in order to improve growth performance and survival rate. The effect of photoperiod on adult redclaws will be evaluated in a future experiment.
View poster (pdf): IAA Gotland 2019