Reproductive Aging of African Catfish in Aquaculture

Vaselina Lyubomirova,Ludmila Shadieva,Elena Romanova,Vasily Romanov,A Valiev,I Safiullin,B Ziganshin,M Kalimullin,M Nizamutdinov,A Taylan,D.I Zhilyakov,R Nizamov,W Heijman,D.A Zyukin,F Nezhmetdinova

doi:10.1051/bioconf/20213700110

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of reproductive aging of African catfish in the conditions of industrial aquaculture. The problem is urgent, because industrial aquaculture changes the biology of African catfish so much that it loses its ability to reproduce naturally. The offspring of African catfish can be obtained only with the use of hormonal inducers of gametogenesis. Questions of age selection of producers and age composition of breeding stock in this type of fish are still open. In practice, we have to face the facts of poor quality of sexual products in primary spawning or old females and males. The aim of the study was a comparative assessment of age-related variability of reproductive properties of female and male African catfish in the conditions of industrial aquaculture. The results of our study showed the presence of age-related dynamics in the quality of sexual products in African catfish. Age-dependent differences in the quality and fertilization of eggs, the viability of embryos and larvae, their size, and the quality of offspring were established. When studying the properties of sexual products in fish of different ages, differences in morphometric and physiological parameters were found for a complex of indicators such as the size and diameter of eggs, sperm concentration, and the number of viable spermatozoa. Evaluation of the influence of parents age on the viability of offspring in the embryonic and postembryonic periods revealed that this indicator is the lowest in first – spawning fish, and the highest in middle-aged fish. The Russian Foundation for Basic Research has supported our study with the grant No. 18-416-730005.

Highlights

An important stage of fish-breeding process is to obtain high-quality reproductive products from producers of cultivated fish species
At the first stage of our work, we studied the fertility and quality of the sexual products of female African catfish, as well as the qualitative characteristics of obtained fish eggs
The analysis of obtained data shows that males and females of the African catfish of different ages differed in their reproductive abilities

Summary

Introduction

An important stage of fish-breeding process is to obtain high-quality reproductive products from producers of cultivated fish species. In Russian fish farming, two main methods of forming a breeding stock are used. The first is the import from other farms of fish eggs, larvae, fry or fingerlings obtained from proven (elite) producers of a particular breed. There is no need to adapt the offspring to new conditions. When using this method of forming a breeding stock, it is necessary to establish strict quality control of reproductive products, as well as control over the development of embryos, larvae, fry and growing juveniles obtained from producers of sexual products [3,4,5]

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