Effects of thyroxine, cod liver oil and potassium iodide on growth and survival of juvenile seahorse,Hippocampus barbouri

Abstract

Low survival at early stage is the bottleneck in seahorse aquaculture, particularly in the feeding aspect since newborn seahorses must feed immediately upon birth to sustain themselves. Seahorses are visual predator, therefore preferred live feed such as zooplankton. In aquaculture, the most common live feed used is Artemia. In this study, two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of different Artemia enrichment on the growth and survival of newborn Hippocampus barbouri. In the first experiment, six treatments using Artemia enriched with Culture Selco Plus™ (SELCO), thyroxine (T4), potassium iodide (KI), cod liver oil (CLO), cod liver oil in combination with thyroxine (CLO + T4) and potassium iodide (CLO+KI) were fed to newborn H. barbouri. Newly hatched Artemia were used as control. At the end of first experiment, treatments using CLO + T4 produced juvenile H. barbouri with the best (p < .05) wet weight (0.142 ± 0.000 g), while juvenile in treatment CLO+KI recorded the highest (p < .05) standard length (3.947 ± 0.014 cm). Subsequently, a second experiment was carried out using the two best enrichment (CLO + T4 and CLO + KI) from the first experiment, but given at different frequency (daily, twice a week, once a week, once in 2 weeks). Daily enrichment using both CLO + T4 and CLO + KI showed no significant (p > .05) difference in growth performance and survival of juvenile of H. barbouri. Interestingly, juvenile fed CLO + T4 enriched Artemia at frequency of twice a week also has no significant difference (p > .05) in survival and growth performance (except for final standard length) when compared with treatment CLO + T4 at daily frequency.