Abstract
Simple SummaryA highly nutritious quality diet that is readily accepted and digested is essential for better growth and development of aquaculture species. Most newly hatched fish and shrimp depend on live food as an important basic diet. Copepods are considered the nutritional benchmark diet for a wide range of marine fish larvae. However, Artemia and rotifers are often favored as starter feed, despite their inferior nutritional values in comparison to copepods. Therefore, Artemia, rotifers, and other live foods are commonly enriched with nutrients such as fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and probiotics to imitate the copepod’s level of essential nutrients to improve rearing success for fish and crustacean larvae.At the present time, no artificial larval diet is capable of entirely fulfilling the dietary requirements of several larval fish and crustacean species. Zooplankton live food is the basic foundation of fish larviculture, and successful rearing of fish larvae still heavily depends on an adequate supply of nutritious live food. Despite being important, the production protocols of copepods and cladocerans (Moina) are still underdeveloped in hatcheries. Rotifers and Artemia are the most commonly used live foods. However, these live foods are evidently lacking in crucial nutrient constituents. Hence, through nutrient enrichment, live food with the nutritional profile that meets the requirements of fish larvae can be produced. With the aim to maximize the effectiveness of production to optimize profitability, it is important to evaluate and improve culture techniques for the delivery of micro- and macro-nutrients as feed supplements to larvae in aquaculture systems. Bioencapsulation and enrichment are the evolving techniques in aquaculture that are commonly employed to enhance the nutritional quality of live food by integrating nutrients into them, which subsequently improves the growth, survival, and disease resistance of the consuming hosts. This review aims to highlight some of the approaches and methods used to improve the nutritional quality of live food by modifying their nutrient composition, which could have immense promise in the enhancement of aquatic animal health.
Highlights
Larvae of many aquatic species either have complete dependence on zooplankton live food as a basal diet, or they have significantly better performance when started on live food [1]
This review focused on the modification of the nutrient composition of zooplankton as live food through supplementation of essential nutrients in culture media before they are fed to fish and crustacean larvae
Live food acts as an important basic diet for larval cultivation, and the availability of appropriate quantities of essential nutrients in the larval diet is crucial to ensure the successful rearing of fish larvae
Summary
Larvae of many aquatic species either have complete dependence on zooplankton live food as a basal diet, or they have significantly better performance when started on live food [1]. Live food organisms are able to swim freely in the water column, thereby being constantly accessible to finfish and crustacean larvae [5,6] Their jerking movements are likely to stimulate larval feeding responses [7]. On the contrary, formulated feeds often accumulate on the water surface or some slowly sink to the bottom, whereby becoming less accessible to larvae [5] Zooplankton such as rotifers and Artemia are by far the most commonly utilized live food in the cultivation of finfish and crustaceans [8]. This review aimed to emphasize the significance of live food and the implementation of different enrichment techniques to incorporate nutrients such as minerals, vitamins, microalgae, lipids, and probiotics to enhance the nutritional status of the live food and to subsequently boost the health of the aquatic animals
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