Artificial feed and feed technology for marine finfish and shellfish larvae: a review [electronic resource].

Includes reference.

Successful larval culture of most marine finfish and shellfish species still depending on live feeds, such as rotifers and Artemia. However, live feeds are expensive to produce and are often of variable quality and accounting for a significant proportion of the total operational costs of hatcheries. Furthermore, crashes of cultures due to bacteria or viral infections can result in interrupted supplies of live feeds and increase disease risks for cultured organisms. The development of a formulated microdiet to replace live prey in the larval stages of marine finfish and shellfish culture remains one of the main challenges for developing marine finfish and shellfish culture. Several kinds of food particles (microbound particles, microcoated particles, protein walled microcapsules and liposomes) have been developed for small aquatic animals. When designing such diets, a balance must be found between a particle with satisfactory water stability and one that is readily digestible by the larvae with a poorly differentiated digestive tract. Special attention must be paid to retaining low molecular weight dietary ingredients such as amino acids, vitamins and minerals, which can be rapidly leached from diet particles prior to ingestion. Most available artificial diets are made up of insoluble dietary components bound together with insoluble binders but early larvae may require dietary supplies of lowmolecular weight peptides and amino acids that are more easily digested and absorbed than proteins. Microparticulate effectively delivers essential nutrients and bioactive compounds Such as amino acids, vitamins, lipids, therapeutics and hormones.

Summary in Arabic.

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