Elsevier

Aquacultural Engineering

Volume 26, Issue 4, November 2002, Pages 263-276
Aquacultural Engineering

Intensification of redclaw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus culture: II. Growout in a separate cell system

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0144-8609(02)00035-3Get rights and content

Abstract

In the process of exploring ways to intensify crayfish culture, a growout system of individual cages (cells) was designed to determine the effects of gender and cell size on the growth of the red claw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus. Cells of three different diameters—large (25 cm), medium (20 cm) and small (16 cm)—were used. When crayfish were stocked at a mean weight of approximately 10 g, growth rate of males was significantly higher than that of females. The growth rate of the males in the large cells was 0.31±0.14 g/day, while that of the females was 0.18±0.09 g/day. The size of the cell had significant influence on the weight of males. Male crayfish in the large and medium cells grew better than those in the small cells. When males were stocked at a higher mean weight (about 23 g), their mean weight after 206 days was higher in the large cells (69.28±15.72 g) than in the small cells (58.11±12.66 g), suggesting that the growth of large males was also affected by cell size. Regardless of cell size, male animals of this species grew faster than females under conditions of individual cells. This intensive culture method appears to present a powerful improvement in yields, by as much as two orders of magnitude, in comparison with communal cultures.

Introduction

Freshwater crayfish may be cultured in extensive or intensive systems (Lee and Wickins, 1992, Ackefors and Lindqvist, 1994, Mills et al., 1994), but the current trend favors intensive technologies because they facilitate more accurate control over culture conditions (Lee and Wickins, 1992) and increased yields per volume of water. It is believed that these increased yields are related to the benthic character of some freshwater crayfish and that the total volume of water available is better utilized when it is divided into separate cells.

In crayfish, growth is a complex process that includes protein synthesis and cell proliferation during intermolt periods and a rapid increase in length and weight at the time of molting (Aiken and Waddy, 1992). In culture systems, the process is affected by a wide variety of factors, including stocking density and compartment size (Aiken, 1980, Morrissy, 1992, Morrissy et al., 1995) as well as gender, acclimation, dissolved oxygen concentration, food supply, temperature, photoperiod, sexual maturity and age (Chittleborough, 1975, Aiken, 1980, Hartnoll, 1983, Botsford, 1985).

In compartmentalized rearing systems for freshwater crayfish, space limitation may cause inhibition of growth (Jussila, 1997). The need has thus arisen to define a parameter that would provide a measure of the optimal compartment size for which growth would not be inhibited. The density factor k, which is expressed as the ratio of the size compartment in individual rearing systems to the size of the crayfish, has been tested as a tool to evaluate rearing systems. In previous studies on crayfish, Goyert and Avault, 1978, Du Boulay et al., 1995 demonstrated growth was inhibited at k≤50, and Jussila (1997) found growth inhibition at k≤45, while in lobsters van Olst and Carlberg (1978) found growth inhibition at k≤33.

Several crustacean species exhibit bimodal growth patterns in which males grow better than females or vice versa. The red claw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus is one such species: in earthen pond cultures, males weighed more than females at the end of the experimental period (Curtis and Jones, 1995). This difference was clearly manifested in a second growout season of over-wintered populations (Sagi et al., 1997a). The above may be exploited to develop an intensive culture strategy for all-male monosex populations (Curtis and Jones, 1995, Sagi et al., 1997a).

Recently, an attempt was made to culture the marron C. tenuimanus in an intensive system comprising individual compartments designed to minimize social contacts and cannibalism (Jussila, 1997). In this study, we set out to test, for the first time, a culture system comprising individual cells for C. quadricarinatus. We investigated the differences in growth between male and female animals in an intensive growout system and attempted to determine the optimal individual cell size.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

Our custom-designed crayfish growout system of 126 individual cages comprised a 3-m2 (bottom area) tank filled to a depth of 1 m containing 18 units, each made up of seven separate circular cells of the same size placed one on top of the other (Fig. 1A). Each unit was elevated 20 cm from the bottom of the tank. The walls and floor of each cell were made of fenestrated polypropylene to facilitate free flow of water (Fig. 1B). Each cell, 11 cm in height, was supplied with its own PVC feeding pipe

Experiment 1—Growth of males and females in separate cells

The average weight of the male animals in the experiment became significantly higher than that of the female crayfish from the 36th day of the experiment and remained significantly higher until the end of the experiment (P<0.001, Fig. 2). On the 36th day, the mean weight of the males was 20.5±5.0 g, while that of females was 17.4±3.5 g. At the end of the experiment, the mean weights were 36.6±11.6 g for the males and 26.4±6.9 g for the females. At that time, the weight distribution of the males

Discussion

We demonstrated that in our intensive separate-cell system C. quadricarinatus males grew faster than females and that growth was affected by cell size. Growth potential of the male animals in the large cells was almost double that of the female crayfish (0.16 vs. 0.31 g/day, Fig. 4). These results suggest that in an all-male monosex culture yields could be as much as 25% higher than those in a mixed population culture. Culture of monosex populations is, indeed, a common procedure in farmed

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from Chief Scientist's Foundation, Ministry of Agriculture, Israel (grant #857-0403-00) and a grant from the ICA Foundation. We would like to thank Inez Mureinik for styling the manuscript, Irith Aloni for statistical analysis, Kobi Avraham, Shaul Shoval and Tal Gur for their technical assistance and Dr Japo Jussila for productive and stimulating scientific discussions.

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