Changes of digestive enzymes activity in Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (Valenciennes, 1844) during ontogeny and larval stages

The study of the digestive enzymes activity in fishes is very necessary to determine enzyme activity and its digestive capability. This study was carried out to identify changes of digestive enzymes in fertilized eggs and larval stages before and after yolk sac absorption in Silver Carp (H. molitrix). For this purpose, sampling was performed from different larval stages of fertilized eggs after mitotic division, at the beginning of gastrulation, hatching time, two third absorption of yolk sac, in the initiation and 3 days after exogenous feeding. In this study, the rate of amylase activity was manually measured while lipase activity was evaluated by enzymatic method using spectrophotometer. Specific activities of lipase and amylase enzymes for the larva with three days after exogenous feeding were significantly higher than the other larval stages. In general, specific activities of amylase and lipase enzymes showed increasing trend during sampling stages.