COPEPOD USE INCREASING AS A LIVE FEED FOR LARVICULTURE

Michael H. Schwarz*, Jerome Bosmans, Chad Clayton, Glenn Schipp, and Stephen Urick1
 102 South King Street
 Hampton Virginia 23669
 mschwarz@vt.edu

      

Aquaculture continues to grow in leaps and bounds across production sectors, countries, and continents. As aquaculture production increases, so does the importance of hatchery capacity and capabilities. In the production of many species, there is reliance during the hatchery/larval phase for some form of live feeds. This is ever more important in the marine sector, with emerging high value food fish and ornamentals not only demonstrating a need for traditional live feeds such as rotifers and Artemia, but also the use of copepods in the live feeding regime. There are three groups "phylogenetic orders" of copepods of particular interest in aquaculture; these are: Calanoida, Cyclopoida, and Harpacticoida. Among others, some of the reasons for increasing use of copepods during larviculture (to achieve reliable high survival and quality weaned fry) relate to their (early nauplii stage) small size, attractive movement in the water column, high digestibility, and often superior nutritional value. Presented will be some general background information regarding copepods, some pros and cons relating to their use and culture, followed by examples of culture and application.