Growth Response of Lobster Panulirus homarus Reared in Tanks and in Floating Net Cages Fed with Compound and Fresh Feed

Feeding efficiency is an important factor that supports the success of lobster grow-out culture. This study aimed to investigate growth of different sex of lobsters after being fed with combination of compound and fresh feed in indoor tanks (experiment-1) and growth of male lobster fed with different co-feeding diets in net floating cages (experiment-2). In experiment-1, five replicates of ten lobsters (191.1 +/- 18.1 g) for each different sex (i.e., all males, males and females, and all females) were reared in 2 x 2 x 1 m3 tanks with flow through water system and fed with combination of compound (75%) and fresh feed (25%) for 120 days. In experiment-2, four replicates of 20 all male lobsters (183.6 +/- 17.6 g) were reared in 12 net cages of 2 x 2 x 2.5 m3 and were fed with compound feed only, compound feed (75%) and fresh feed (25%), and compound feed (75%) with mussel meat (25%) for 120 days. Experiment-1 showed that growth (quantified as weight gain) of all male lobsters was the highest (59.4 +/- 10.0 g). Experiment-2 showed that compound feed combined with fresh feed resulted in higher growth of lobster (0.73 +/- 0.17 g) than 100% compound feed. There was no difference in survival rate of lobster among the treatment in both experiments with 94 - 100% in experiment-1 and 75.2 to 85.0% in experiment-2. The mortality of lobster caused by Milky Hemolymph Disease (MHD) in floating cage was found higher than in indoor tanks.