Aquaculture Diet Development Subprogram: development of marine fish larval diets to replace Artemia

Funded Activity Summary

The major problem area in the cultivation of marine fish is the culture of the early life stages and control of larval nutrition is a key element. The use of live food for hatchery culture of marine fish larvae is currently considered obligatory for successful culture. However, their use is costly, especially during recent years where global harvests of Artemia cysts have decreased sharply leading to a global shortage. To produce 10,000 snapper or barramundi juveniles (50 days old) past metamorphosis, 1.5 kg of Artemia cysts is needed. The production cost of Artemia nauplii is 10 cents / juvenile (Frankish, pers. Comm.), which includes Artemia cysts, enrichments, labor and running costs (e.g. heaters, air etc.). Currently, 1 kg of Artemia cysts cost $AU-400-500; however, it is now almost impossible to obtain them in Australia. Replacing even 50% of imported Artemia cysts may result in substantial cost savings leading to more efficient hatchery production and facilitating industry expansion.
The FRDC R&D plan for hatchery feeds (the outcome from the FRDC hatchery feeds workshop, Cairns, Qld.) put a high priority on R&D projects to find local solutions to overcome the ‘Artemia crisis’ and reduce dependence on imported Artemia cysts. More specifically, it emphasised three particular research needs: (1) to assess the potential of Australian Artemia strains; (2) to determine the effectiveness of currently available artificial diets for finfish larvae; and (3) to develop ‘local’ artificial diets and protocols for weaning and co-feeding of live and dry diets. The R&D priorities (FRDC plan) for Artemia and artificial diets are attached as Appendix 1.

Objectives:
1. To develop a standard testing system for evaluating live and artificial feeds for finfish larvae
2. To test currently available artificial (commercial) diets
3. To formulate artificial larvae diets
4. To assess the use of ‘local’ Artemia and improve their nutritional value
5. To develop the use of co-feeding live and dry diets for partial or full replacement of Artemia nauplii

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 09-07-2001

End Date: 01-06-2005

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $523,903.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Aquaculture | Biology | Food technology | Nutrition | Physiology

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