Research Report Open Access Characterization of Bioflocs in a No Water Exchange Super-intensive System for the Production of Food Size Pacific White Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Haslun et al., 2012, Characterization of Bioflocs in a No Water Exchange Super-intensive System for the Production of Food Size Pacific White Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei, International Journal of Aquacultute, Vol.2, No.6 29-39 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2012. 02.0006) Abstract Zero exchange super-intensive recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) represent an environmentally “friendly “ alternative to traditional shrimp culture methods, however the susceptibility to pathogens typically increases as the density of cultured organisms increases. The study describes a greenhouse-enclosed super-intensive RAS, utilizing culture water from a 62-day nursery trial, to grow juvenile (0.99 g) Litopenaeus vannamei, Pacific White Shrimp, to market-size under high stocking density (450/m3). The study evaluated the effects of foam fractionation and settling tank particulate control methods on water quality and microbial particulate related flora in four 40 m3 tanks with two replicates per control method under no water exchange. Microbial communities were distinguished at the gram-stain level using flow cytometric fluorescent activated cell sorter (FACS) methods. Differentiation betwee