Using live food technical culture for development of Ornamental fish larvae

The industrial development of ornamental fish culture has been hampered by the lack of suitable live feeds for feeding the fish at the various production stages. This paper reports the recent developments in the applications of the freshwater rotifers (Brachionus calyciflorus), Artemia nauplii, decapsulated Artemia cysts and on-grown Artemia in the ornamental fish culture.Results demonstrate that the rotifers are an ideal starter feed for dwarf gourami (Colisa lalia), a typical freshwater ornamental fish species with larvae that are too small to ingest Artemia nauplii or Moina at its first feeding. Compared with the conventional yolk food, the use o f rotifers as a starter feed significantly improves the growth and survival of the gourami larvae (Days 2 -12), and the beneficial effects are extended to the subsequent Artemia-feeding phase (Days 13 -32).
Work on decapsulated Artemia cysts indicates that the cysts could be used as a substitute for Artemia nauplii or Moina in freshwater ornamental fish culture. The fry of (guppy Poecilia reticulata, molly Poecilia sphenops, platy Xiphophorus maculatus, swordtail Xiphophorus helleri and neontetra Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi) could readily feed on the decapsulated cysts, and their performances in terms of stress resistance, growth and survival are comparable to or better than those fed on Artemia nauplii or Moina. This characteristic, coupled with the use of bioencapsulation technique to enhance the quality o f the on-grow n Artemia, would make the organism an ideal nursery diet for freshwater ornamental fish. All these results show that the live feeds used in marine food fish hatchery could be applied to freshwater ornamental fish culture to improve their performance.