2007 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416) To determine the minimum nutrient requirements for reproductive performance in maturing shrimp broodstock, and develop a prepared shrimp maturation feed that will eliminate or substantially reduce the need for the currently used raw ingredients (e.e., bloodworms, squid and artemia). 1b.Approach (from AD-416) The maturation feed that is currently in use at Oceanic Institute (consisting of raw bloodworms, squid, and artemia biomass) will be used as the control diet. This work will be conducted in two phases. In the first phase, diets based on the composition of the control diet will be tested for their suitability as maturation diets. In the secound phase, the necessity of specific feed components (nutrients, etc.) will be assessed. The requirement level of those components [e.g., long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (epa, dha, and ara), cholesterol, phospholipids (lecithin), nucleotides, tryptophan and fat-soluble vitamins (a, d and e0)] that are found to have a positive influence on maturation performance will be quantified using dose-response trials. The information obtained from these tasks will be used to formulate a diet that meets the nutritional needs of maturing shrimp and the ability of this diet to replace the control feed will be tested. Documents NFCA with Oceanic Institute. 3.Progress Report Question 3: This report documents research conducted under a non-funded cooperative agreement between ARS and the Oceanic Institute in Waimanalo, Hawaii. Additional details of research can be found in the report for the parent project 5320-31000-007-00D Tropical Aquaculture: Develop Feeds for Optimum Nutrition of Cultured Shrimp and Finfish. During the time period covered under this report, a revised proposal was submitted to ARS. Approval of this revision is pending. A preliminary trial was conducted with female shrimp broodstock to evaluate a potential platform for testing maturation diets that would provide for multiple replications of treatments. Unfortunately, the platform proved unsuitable because the culture vessels were too small and the shrimp were unable to survive through the maturation process. As a result of this preliminary finding, we anticipate that the culture vessels will be used as originally planned (after evaluation). No expenses were charged against the project for this preliminary trial. This project is monitored through meetings, conference calls, email communication, and on-site visits.