Influence of larval co-feeding with live and inert diets on weaning the tongue sole Cynoglossus semilaevis

Abstract

The tongue sole Cynoglossus semilaevis, an inshore fish in China, has showed great potential in aquaculture recently. However, poor survival was recorded during the period of weaning from live Artemia to artificial diets. In this paper, the influence of co-feeding larvae with live and inert diet on weaning performance was described. The C. semilaevis larvae were reared at 21 ± 1°C and fed four different feeding regimes from 6 days post-hatching (dph): A, Artemia (10 individuals mL )1 ); B, Artemia (5 individuals mL )1 ); C, mixed diet (10 Artemia individuals mL )1 and 12 mg L )1 inert diet); and D, mixed diet (5 Artemia individuals mL )1 and 12 mg L )1 inert diet). Rotifers were also supplied in all cases during the first days of feeding. Mixed diets of commercial formulated feed and live prey (rotifers and Artemia) allowed larvae to complete metamorphosis, achieving similar specific growth rate (SGR) (18.5 ± 1.4% and 18.7 ± 1.6%) and survival (40 ± 7.6% and 48.5 ± 6.8%) compared with larvae fed on live feed alone (SGR of 18.3 ± 1.2%, 19.3 ± 1.9% and survival of 41.2 ± 11.3%, 38 ± 4.9%). However, in metamorphosed fish, when live feed was withdrawn on 31 dph, there was significant difference (P < 0.05) in survival and growth among treatments. Metamorphosed fish, previously fed mixture diets during larval stages, had similar survival (62.1 ± 7.6% and 62.8 ± 3.9% for regimes C and D, respectively) but higher than that obtained for fish that previously fed on live feed (49.3 ± 2% and 42.1 ± 3.9% for regimes A and B, respectively) after weaning (day 60). The SGR of weaned fish previously fed live feed was similar (3.1 ± 0.6% and 2.92 ± 0.6% for regimes A and B, respectively) but lower than that recorded for fish that was fed from day 6 to day 30 on the mixed diet (4.5 ± 1.1% and 4.9 ± 0.3% for regimes C and D, respectively). It is suggested that weaning of C. semilaevis from early development would appear to be feasible and larval co-feeding improves growth and survival. KEY WORDS

Effects of daphnia (Moina micrura) plus chlorella (Chlorella pyrenoidosa) or microparticle diets on growth and survival of larval loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus)

“…Live Artemia nauplii have been using as a feed for farming many fishery seeds in the world for a long time (Sorgeloos 1980;Kim et al 1996;Chang et al 2006). However, the product of Artemia eggs is becoming more and more expensive in national and international markets.…”

Natural carbon stable isotope ratios as indicators of the relative contribution of live and inert diets to growth in larval Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis)

“…The degree to which live foods for marine fish larvae can be replaced with inert diets has been steadily increasingly as a result of the development of new microdiets and delivery methods (Fletcher et al, 2007;Langdon et al, 2007). In sole larvae, a number of studies have reported the use of different inert diets as partial substitutes for live feed (Cañavate and Fernández-Díaz, 1999;Ribeiro et al, 2002;Chang et al, 2006;Palazzi et al, 2006). However, the extent to which inert diets contribute directly to sole larval growth has not been determined.…”

“…Even though inert feeds are being increasingly used as part of co-feeding regimes, higher replacement ratios have resulted in low growth and survival (Teshima et al, 2000). The poor performance of artificial diets has been related to their inability to meet specific nutritional requirements of the larvae (Fletcher et al, 2007) and to the inadequate incorporation of nutrients by the fish due to poor ingestion, digestion and/or assimilation (Chang et al, 2006). In a recent study , Jomori et al (2008) determined the stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes profiles in live and inert diets and in pacu fish larvae in order to identify periods in which larvae started using nutrients from an inert diet after being weaned from Artemia nauplii.…”

Influence of Live and Dry Diets on Growth and Survival of Chub (Leuciscus cephalus) Larvae

“…Nevertheless, there have been some successes for larval production from feeding micro-diets after feeding live diets [25]. For example, a range of marine species that were commercial feed two live and dry foods demonstrated excellent larval growth and survival [26] although until now this had not yet been shown in any cyprinidae fish species. …”