NSF Award
9161003
The steadily increasing consumption of seafood and the relative decline in harvest from the capture fishery is expected to lead to increased importance of aquaculture production of edible fish in the U.S. and throughout the world. However, increased production of marine finfish will require improvements in hatchery production of larvae, which is currently hampered by an inadequate supply of larval food. The rotifer, Brachionus plicatilis, is an important food for larval fish. Specialized nutritional requirements of rotifers and fish larvae increase their production costs. The difficulty in supplying sufficient quantities and qualities of rotifers is a major impediment to larval fish production. This research is to develop low cost, high quality feeds for the mass production of rotifers by using heterotrophically grown microalgae. the development of these feeds should significantly decrease costs of producing rotifers, while at the same time improve the larval fish survival rates and overall of finfish production.
