Lighting colour, moulting and growth in prawns – their relationship.

Anyone who has cultured or kept crustacea will know that the animals seem to “grow” much larger after immediately after moulting and nothing much seems to happen in between. This clever experiment demonstrates how different coloured lights can play a role in growth rates and moulting frequency. Such experimentation will become more practical if/when shrimp culture migrates to the predicted “super-intensive” systems.

Aquaculture
Volume 363, Number 8 (September 2012)
	Effect of periodic light color change on the molting frequency and growth of Litopenaeus vannamei
	Authors:	Biao Guo, Yingchun Mu, Fang Wang, Shuanglin Dong
	Author Affiliations:	no affiliations available
	Source:	Aquaculture, Volume 363, Number 8 (September 2012)
	Page Numbers:	67 – 71
	Available Full Text:	Full Text: Subscription Required to view full text Format: PDF Size: Unknown Location: Publisher’s Site Authentication: Publisher’s Site
	Abstract:	Six color treatments Yellow light (Y), Green light (G), Blue light (B), Blue light to Yellow light (BY), Blue light to Green light (BG), Green to Yellow light (GY) were tested to determine if light color change can promote the growth of Litopenaeus vannamai. After a 45-day experiment, shrimp in BG treatment showed the best weight gain (WG) and the specific growth rate (SGRd), which might have been caused by high food conversion efficiency (FCEd), lowest energy allocation for respiration and highest energy allocation for growth. The molting frequency in GY treatment was the highest, but the growth was not the best. These results suggest that the periodic fluctuation from blue region of the spectrum to green region of the spectrum could promote the growth of L. vannameiand this periodic light color fluctuation may be used as a pattern of regulation of light color in the commercial shrimp culture.
	Citation:	Biao Guo, Yingchun Mu, Fang Wang, Shuanglin Dong . Effect of periodic light color change on the molting frequency and growth of Litopenaeus vannamei. Aquaculture, Volume 363, Number 8 (September 2012), pp. 67-71, <http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=4CD28768DFA6A9DD42E9&gt;
	URL:	http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=4CD28768DFA6A9DD42E9