THE EFFICIENCY OF SIBERIAN STURGEON LARVAE FEEDING WITH ARTEMIA NAUPLII HATCHED FROM DECAPSULATED CYSTS

Liliana B. Athanasopoulos, Desimira M. Stroe, D. Mirea, Fl.M. Dima, N. Patriche, Magdalena Tenciu, Veta Nistor, Elena Sîrbu

Abstract
   Aquaculture worldwide uses Artemia salina brine shrimp due to the cysts which have the advantage of being stored and incubated as needed and can quickly become, through the freshly hatched nauplii, the most important source of live food for fish larvae. This study looks at new methods for decapsulating Artemia cysts and the effect of using hatched nauplii from decapsulated or undecapsulated cysts in Siberian sturgeon larvae feeding. Decapsulation of cysts is an optional operation carried out in order to increase the hatching rate of nauplii and to reduce the mortality (up to 10%) of fish larvae which are fed on freshly hatched nauplii and whose separation from the shells or unhatched cysts cannot be total. Decapsulation avoids a possible obstruction of the fish larvae intestine with the Artemia cysts and the related mortality.