THE CCU FISH PLATFORM: SUPPORTING ZEBRAFISH RESEARCH THROUGH RIGOROUS HUSBANDRY AND HEALTH PROGRAMS, AND BEYOND

The Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (CCU) Fish Platform oversees a fish facility that houses, breeds and maintains wild-type, mutant and transgenic zebrafish with the most rigorous international health and welfare standards essential for biomedical research. The Platform also provides supporting services to researchers such as fish crosses, maintenance of fish lines, genetic screens, embryo microinjection, advanced training, database management and continuous development of husbandry protocols. It is also the fish coordinator of a recently formed consortium (CONGENTO - Consortium for Genetically Tractable Organisms) aiming to provide external services such as fish production, transgenics, gene editing, genetic screens and advanced training to the scientific community.

Here we present an integrated perspective of our facility management, detailing both husbandry and health programs. We will also show results from a comparative study using three commercial dry feeds from first feed to 180 dpf in three different feeding regimens after day 9 post fertilization where the impact on survival, growth, age of sexual maturity, fecundity and embryo viability was assessed. One feed stood out as best performer in all parameters evaluated and although with better results when complemented with live feeds, it is possible to attain quite a satisfactory level of performance using only dry feed which may be relevant for many studies and facilities.