Abstract
This study documents the complete larval development of the Monkey River Prawn Macrobrachium lar using a new greenwater rearing technique. Approximately 6,000 larvae were reared for 110 days at an initial stocking density of 1 ind./6 L. Salinity at hatch was 10 ± 2 ppt and progressively increased to 30 ± 2 ppt until decapodids had metamorphosed. Temperature was maintained at 28 ± 0.5°C, pH at 7.8 ± 0.2, DO2 > 6.5 mg/L and NH4+ and NH3 ≤ 1.5 and ≤0.1 ppm respectively throughout the culture period. Larval development was extended and occurred through 13 zoeal stages, with the first decapodid measuring 6.2 ± 0.63 mm in total length observed after 77 days. 5 decapodids in total were produced, and overall survival to this stage was 0.08%. Overall, the pattern of larval growth shares similarities with those of other Macrobrachium spp. that have a prolonged/normal type of development, and it is likely that larvae underwent mark time moulting which contributed to the lengthened development duration. While this study represents a significant breakthrough in efforts to domesticate M. lar, improvement of larval survival rates and decreased time till metamorphosis are required before it can become fully viable for commercial scale aquaculture.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-568) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The state of knowledge on the larval development of M. lar is fragmentary, largely due to difficulties encountered by previous researchers in rearing larvae to metamorphosis
This paper describes the morphological larval development of M. lar which was successfully completed in the laboratory using a novel greenwater rearing technique, with the specific objective of describing larvae in a simple manner through all larval developmental stages until metamorphosis into the decapodid, in order to facilitate further rearing efforts for aquaculture
Hatch tank preparation Circular 1000 L flat-bottomed polyethylene tanks for hatching larvae doubled as larval rearing tanks (LRTs)
Summary
The state of knowledge on the larval development of M. lar is fragmentary, largely due to difficulties encountered by previous researchers in rearing larvae to metamorphosis. Further attempts were made by Atkinson (1973, 1977), Muranaka in Hanson and Goodwin (1977), Takano (1987), Nandlal (2010), Sethi and Roy in Kutty and Valenti (2010) and Sethi et al (2011), all experienced total larval mortality before metamorphosis to the decapodid. S. Muranaka (in Hanson and Goodwin 1977), who had reportedly managed to produce decapodids, it appears no further publications resulted from that study
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