Effect of dietary (n-3) highly unsaturated fatty acids on growth and survival of fat snook (Centropomus parallelus, Pisces: Centropomidae) larvae during first feeding

Abstract

The effect of rotifers, Brachionus rotundiformis (S-type), fed three different diets: A (rotifer fed Nannochloropsis oculata), B (rotifer fed N. oculata and bakers yeast, 1:1), and C (rotifer fed N. oculata and bakers yeast, 1:1, and enriched with Selco â ), was evaluated based on the survival, growth and swim bladder inflation rate of fat snook larvae. Rotifers of treatment A had higher levels (4.58 mg/g dry weight) of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) than B (1.81 mg/g dry weight), and similar levels (0.04 and 0.06 mg/g dry weight, respectively) of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Rotifers of treatment C had the highest levels of EPA (13.2 mg/g dry weight) and DHA (6.08 mg/g dry weight). Fat snook eggs were obtained by spawning induction with human chorionic gonadotropin. Thirty hours after hatching, 30 larvae/ liter were stocked in black cylindric-conical tanks (36-liter capacity). After 14 days of culture, there were no significant differences among treatments. Mean standard length was 3.13 mm for treatment A, 3.17 mm for B, and 3.39 mm for C. Mean survival rates were very low (2.7% for treatment A, 2.3% for B, and 1.8% for C). Swim bladder inflation rates were 34.7% for treatment A, 27.1% for B, and 11.9% for C. The lack of differences in growth and survival among treatments showed that the improvement of the dietary value of rotifer may not have been sufficient to solve the problem of larval rearing. Some other factor, probably pertaining to the quality of the larvae, may have negatively influenced survival.

Effect of increasing docosahexaenoic acid content in weaning diets on survival, growth and skeletal anomalies of longfin yellowtail (Seriola rivoliana,Valenciennes 1833)

“…On the other hand, inclusion of dietary DHA did not significantly affect S. rivoliana larval growth. Similar results have been reported in other marine teleost species, such as S. aurata (Hernández‐Cruz et al., ; Izquierdo et al., ), P. pagrus (Roo et al., ), Coryphaena hippurus (Kraul, ) and Centropomus parallelus (Seifert, Cerqueira & Madureira, ), where fish performance was not influenced by increasing dietary levels of DHA. Contrarily to what could be expected taking into account other studies from the Seriola genus (Furuita, Takeuchi, Watanabe et al., ; Matsunari et al., ; Takeuchi et al., ), larval growth was slightly higher among the larvae fed the lowest DHA dietary content (Diet DHA0; 0.25% DHA, dw), albeit no significant differences were observed.…”

Growth performance and gene expression in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) fed microdiets with high docosahexaenoic acid and antioxidant levels

“…Moreover, increase in the dietary DHA content well over the requirements did not cause negative effects in gilthead sea bream larval survival in agreement with the results obtained in other species (Kraul ; Seiffert et al . ). However, a DHA increase from 1 to 5% in similar early‐weaning diets for European sea bass negatively affected larval survival (Betancor et al .…”

A review of spawning induction, larviculture, and juvenile rearing of the fat snook, Centropomus parallelus

“…However, this change of prey did not improve larvae survival, which was very low in all treatments (from 0.2% to 2.4%) 2 weeks after hatching. Another first-feeding experiment tested the dietary value of the rotifer fed microalgae, baker's yeast or a commercial emulsion (Seiffert et al 2001). Yolk-sac larvae, obtained through hCG induction of wild broodfish, were stocked in 36-l tanks at a density of 30 l -1 .…”