Collected reprints: Abstract 3531
Collected reprints
Abstract
The dried cysts of the brine shrimp Artemia salina are used all over the world as a most convenient source of live crustacean nauplii which are indispensable for the larval stages of many fishes and crustaceans. With the expansion of mariculture, the demand for the resting eggs of Artemia has greatly increased and at certain moments of the year it exceeds the offer. Hence it is even more regrettable that in most mariculture farms a considerable wastage of this precious live food occurs: the nauplii are usually hatched in uncontrolled conditions, and the instar stage at which the Artemia larvae are offered to the predator is not considered and varies from one experiment to another. From fundamental research on the hatching and molting rate of Artemia larvae it appears that the water temperature has an important influence on the latter two processes. The biochemical data reported in this paper, reveal drastic changes in the dry- and ash weight and in the caloric- and lipid content of Artemia nauplii when they molt from the 1st into the 2nd and 3rd instar stages.
In order to keep the energetic value as high as possible, it is clear that the cysts should be hatched under strictly controlled conditions and should be fed to the larval fishes or crustaceans as soon as possible after hatching.
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